ONE    HOUSE    ON   THE    PINNACLE    LOOKING    OVER    THE    EDGE    OF    THE    WORLD 


The  Last 
Book  of  Wonder 


BY 


Lord  Dunsany 


With  Illustrations  by 

S.  H.  SIME 


BOSTON 
JOHN  W.  LUCE  &  COMPANY 


Copyright,  1916, 
BY  JOHN  W.  LUCE  &  COMPANY 


Preface 


Ebrington  Barracks 
Aug.  16th  1916. 

I  do  not  know  where  I  may  be  when  this 
preface  is  read.  As  I  write  it  in  August  1916, 
I  am  at  Ebrington  Barracks,  Londonderry, 
recovering  from  a  slight  wound.  But  it 
does  not  greatly  matter  where  I  am;  my 
dreams  are  here  before  you  amongst  the 
following  pages;  and  writing  in  a  day  when 
life  is  cheap,  dreams  seem  to  me  all  the 
dearer,  the  only  things  that  survive. 

Just  now  the  civilization  of  Europe  seems 
almost  to  have  ceased,  and  nothing  seems 
to  grow  in  her  torn  fields  but  death,  yet  this 
is  only  for  a  while  and  dreams  will  come 
back  again  and  bloom  as  of  old,  all  the  more 


Preface 

radiantly  for  this  terrible  ploughing,  as  the 
flowers  will  bloom  again  where  the  trenches 
are  and  the  primroses  shelter  in  shell-holes 
for  many  seasons,  when  weeping  Liberty 
has  come  home  to  Flanders. 

To  some  of  you  in  America  this  may  seem 
an  unnecessary  and  wasteful  quarrel,  as 
other  people's  quarrels  often  are;  but  it 
comes  to  this  that  though  we  are  all  killed 
there  will  be  songs  again,  but  if  we  were  to 
submit  and  so  survive  there  could  be  neither 
songs  nor  dreams,  nor  any  joyous  free  things 
any  more. 

And  do  not  regret  the  lives  that  are 
wasted  amongst  us,  or  the  work  that  the 
dead  would  have  done,  for  war  is  no  accident 
that  man's  care  could  have  averted,  but  is 
as  natural,  though  not  as  regular,  as  the 
tides;  as  well  regret  the  things  that  the  tide 
has  washed  away,  which  destroys  and 
cleanses  and  crumbles,  and  spares  the 
minutest  shells. 


Preface 

And  now  I  will  write  nothing  further 
about  our  war,  but  offer  you  these  books  of 
dreams  from  Europe  as  one  throws  things 
of  value,  if  only  to  oneself,  at  the  last 
moment  out  of  a  burning  house. 

DUNSANY. 


Contents 


PAGE 
A  TALE  OF  LONDON         ....  1 

vg;  THIRTEEN  AT  TABLE         .         .         .         .  8  v^" 

O  THE  CITY  ON  MALLINGTON  MOOR    .         .          27  - 
WHY    THE    MILKMAN  SHUDDERS  WHEN  HE 

PERCEIVES  THE  DAWN  ....  42 

THE  BAD  OLD  WOMAN  IN  BLACK     .         .          48 

THE  BIRD  OF  THE  DIFFICULT  EYE    .         .  53 

THE  LONG  PORTER'S  TALE       ...  60 

THE  LOOT  OF  LOMA         ....  72 
THE  SECRET  OF  THE  SEA          ...          80 

How  An  CAME  TO  THE  BLACK  COUNTRY     .  88 
THE  BUREAU  D'ECHANGE  DE  MAUX  .  96 

A  STORY  OF  LAND  AND  SEA     .         .         .  106 

A  TALE  OF  THE  EQUATOR         .         .         .  153 

V  NARROW  ESCAPE  ....  159 

THE  WATCH-TOWER          ....  164 
How    PLASH-GOO   CAME  TO  THE  LAND  OF 

NONE'S  DESIRE 169 

THE  THREE  SAILOR'S  GAMBIT  .         .         .  173 

THE  EXILES  CLUB 190 

THE  THREE  INFERNAL  JOKES  .  200 


List  of  Illustrations 


ONE  HOUSE  ON  THE  PINNACLE  LOOKING  OVER 
THE  EDGE  OF  THE  WORLD     .         .       Frontispiece 

To  face  page 

THE  BAD  OLD  WOMAN  IN  BLACK  RAN  DOWN 
THE  STREET  OF  THE  OX-BUTCHERS          .  48 

THERE  STOOD  THAT  LONELY,  GNARLED   AND 
DECIDUOUS  TREE          .         .         .         .  58 

THEY  HAD  GONE  THREE  DAYS  ALONG  THAT 
NARROW  LEDGE 72 

MIDNIGHT  AND  MOONLIGHT  AND  THE  TEMPLE 
IN  THE  SEA  .....  86 

GUIDED  BY  ALI,  ALL  THREE  SET  FORTH  FOR 
THE  MIDLANDS  90 


A  Tale  of  London 


ome,"  said  the  Sultan  to  his 
hasheesh-eater  in  the  very 
furthest  lands  that  know 
Bagdad,  "dream  to  me  now 
of  London." 

And  the  hasheesh-eater 
made  a  low  obeisance  and  seated  himself 
cross-legged  upon  a  purple  cushion  broid- 
ered  with  golden  poppies,  on  the  floor,  be- 
side an  ivory  bowl  where  the  hasheesh  was, 
and  having  eaten  liberally  of  the  hasheesh 
blinked  seven  times  and  spoke  thus: 

"0  Friend  of  God,  know  then  that 
London  is  the  desiderate  town  even  of  all 
Earth's  cities.  Its  houses  are  of  ebony  and 
cedar  which  they  roof  with  thin  copper 
plates  that  the  hand  of  Time  turns  green. 
They  have  golden  balconies  in  which  ame- 
thysts are  where  they  sit  and  watch  the 
sunset.  Musicians  in  the  gloaming  steal 

l 


The  Lout  Book  of  Wonder 

softly  along  the  ways;  unheard  their  feet 
fall  on  the  white  sea-sand  with  which  those 
ways  are  strewn,  and  in  the  darkness  sud- 
denly they  play  on  dulcimers  and  instru- 
ments with  strings.  Then  are  there  mur- 
murs in  the  balconies  praising  their  skill, 
then  are  there  bracelets  cast  down  to  them 
for  reward  and  golden  necklaces  and  even 
pearls. 

"Indeed  but  the  city  is  fair;  there  is  by 
the  sandy  ways  a  paving  all  alabaster,  and 
the  lanterns  along  it  are  of  chrysoprase, 
all  night  long  they  shine  green,  but  of  ame- 
thyst are  the  lanterns  of  the  balconies. 

"As  the  musicians  go  along  the  ways  dan- 
cers gather  about  them  and  dance  upon  the 
alabaster  pavings,  for  joy  and  not  for  hire. 
Sometimes  a  window  opens  far  up  in  an 
ebony  palace  and  a  wreath  is  cast  down  to 
a  dancer  or  orchids  showered  upon  them. 

"Indeed  of  many  cities  have  I  dreamt 
but  of  none  fairer,  through  many  marble 
metropolitan  gates  hasheesh  has  led  me, 
but  London  is  its  secret,  the  last  gate  of  all; 
the  ivory  bowl  has  nothing  more  to  show. 
And  indeed  even  now  the  imps  that  crawl 
behind  me  and  that  will  not  let  me  be  are 

2 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

plucking  me  by  the  elbow  and  bidding  my 
spirit  return,  for  well  they  know  that  I 
have  seen  too  much.  'No,  not  London,' 
they  say;  and  therefore  I  will  speak  of  some 
other  city,  a  city  of  some  less  mysterious 
land,  and  anger  not  the  imps  with  forbidden 
things.  I  will  speak  of  Persepolis  or  fa- 
mous Thebes." 

A  shade  of  annoyance  crossed  the  Sul- 
tan's face,  a  look  of  thunder  that  you  had 
scarcely  seen,  but  in  those  lands  they 
watched  his  visage  well,  and  though  his 
spirit  was  wandering  far  away  and  his  eyes 
were  bleared  with  hasheesh  yet  that  story- 
teller there  and  then  perceived  the  look 
that  was  death,  and  sent  his  spirit  back  at 
once  to  Condon  as  a  man  runs  into  his  house 
when  the  thunder  comes. 

"And  therefore,"  he  continued,  "in  the 
desiderate  city,  in  London,  all  their  camels 
are  pure  white.  Remarkable  is  the  swift- 
ness of  their  horses,  that  draw  their  chariots 
that  are  of  ivory  along  those  sandy  ways 
and  that  are  of  surpassing  lightness,  they 
have  little  bells  of  silver  upon  their  horses' 
heads.  0  Friend  of  God,  if  you  perceived 
their  merchants!  The  glory  of  their  dresses 

3 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

in  the  noonday!  They  are  no  less  gorgeous 
than  those  butterflies  that  float  about  their 
streets.  They  have  overcloaks  of  green 
and  vestments  of  azure,  huge  purple  flow- 
ers blaze  on  their  overcloaks,  the  work  of 
cunning  needles,  the  centres  of  the  flowers 
are  of  gold  and  the  petals  of  purple.  All 
their  hats  are  black — "  ("No,  no,"  said 
the  Sultan)  — "but  irises  are  set  about  the 
brims,  and  green  plumes  float  above  the 
crowns  of  them. 

"They  have  a  river  that  is  named  the 
Thames,  on  it  their  ships  go  up  with  violet 
sails  bringing  incense  for  the  braziers  that 
perfume  the  streets,  new  songs  exchanged 
for  gold  with  alien  tribes,  raw  silver  for 
the  statues  of  their  heroes,  gold  to  make 
balconies  where  their  women  sit,  great 
apphires  to  reward  their  poets  with,  the 
ecrets  of  old  cities  and  strange  lands,  the 
earning  of  the  dwellers  in  far  isles,  emeralds, 
diamonds  and  the  hoards  of  the  sea.  And 
whenever  a  ship  comes  into  port  and  furls 
its  violet  sails  and  the  news  spreads  through 
London  that  she  has  come,  then  all  the 
merchants  go  down  to  the  river  to  barter, 
and  all  day  long  the  chariots  whirl  through 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

the  streets,  and  the  sound  of  their  going  is 
a  mighty  roar  all  day  until  evening,  their 
roar  is  even  like  — " 

"Not  so,"  said  the  Sultan. 

"Truth  is  not  hidden  from  the  Friend  of 
God,"  replied  the  hasheesh-eater,  "I  have 
erred  being  drunken  with  hasheesh,  for  in 
the  desiderate  city,  even  in  London,  so 
thick  upon  the  ways  is  the  white  sea-sand 
with  which  the  city  glimmers  that  no 
sound  comes  from  the  path  of  the  char- 
ioteers, but  they  go  softly  like  a  light  sea- 
wind."  ("It  is  well,"  said  the  Sultan.) 
"They  go  softly  down  to  the  port  where  the 
vessels  are,  and  the  merchandise  in  from 
the  sea,  amongst  the  wonders  that  the  sail- 
ors show,  on  land  by  the  high  ships,  and 
softly  they  go  though  swiftly  at  evening 
back  to  their  homes. 

"0  would  that  the  Munificent,  the  Illus- 
trious, the  Friend  of  God,  had  even  seen 
these  things,  had  seen  the  jewellers  with 
their  empty  baskets,  bargaining  there  by 
the  ships,  when  the  barrels  of  emeralds 
came  up  from  the  hold.  Or  would  that  he 
had  seen  the  fountains  there  in  silver 
basins  in  the  midst  of  the  ways.  I  have 

5  •  • 


The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

seen  small  spires  upon  their  ebony  houses 
and  the  spires  were  all  of  gold,  birds  strutted 
there  upon  the  copper  roofs  from  golden 
spire  to  spire  that  have  no  equal  for  splen- 
dour in  all  the  woods  of  the  world.  And 
over  London  the  desiderate  city  the  sky 
is  so  deep  a  blue  that  by  this  alone  the 
traveller  may  know  where  he  has  come, 
and  may  end  his  fortunate  journey.  Nor 
yet  for  any  colour  of  the  sky  is  there  too 
great  heat  in  London,  for  along  its  ways  a 
wind  blows  always  from  the  South  gently 
and  cools  the  city. 

"Such,  0  Friend  of  God,  is  indeed  the  city 
of  London,  lying  very  far  off  on  the  yonder 
side  of  Bagdad,  without  a  peer  for  beauty 
or  excellence  of  its  ways  among  all  the 
towns  of  the  earth  or  cities  of  song;  and 
even  so,  as  I  have  told,  its  fortunate  citi- 
zens dwell,  with  their  hearts  ever  devising 
beautiful  things  and  from  the  beauty  of 
their  own  fair  work  that  is  more  abundant 
around  them  every  year,  receiving  new 
inspirations  to  work  things  more  beautiful 
yet." 

"And  is  their  government  good?"  the 
Sultan  said, 

6 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

"It  is  most  good,"  said  the  hasheesh- 
eater,  and  fell  backwards  upon  the  floor. 

He  lay  thus  and  was  silent.  And  when 
the  Sultan  perceived  he  would  speak  no 
more  that  night  he  smiled  and  lightly 
applauded. 

And  there  was  envy  in  that  palace,  in 
lands  beyond  Bagdad,  of  all  that  dwell  in 
London. 


Thirteen  at  Table 


[n  front  of  a  spacious  fireplace 
[of  the  old  kind,  when  the  logs 
iwere  well  alight,  and  men 
with  pipes  and  glasses  were 
gathered  before  it  in  great 
easeful  chairs,  and  the  wild 
weather  outside  and  the  comfort  that  was 
within,  and  the  season  of  the  year  —  for  it 
was  Christmas —  and  the  hour  of  the  night, 
all  called  for  the  weird  or  uncanny,  then  out 
spoke  the  ex-master  of  foxhounds  and  told 
this  tale. 

I  once  had  an  odd  experience  too.  It 
was  when  I  had  the  Bromley  and  Syden- 
ham,  the  year  I  gave  them  up  —  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  it  was  the  last  day  of  the  season. 
It  was  no  use  going  on  because  there  were 
no  foxes  left  in  the  county,  and  London 
was  sweeping  down  on  us.  You  could  see 
it  from  the  kennels  all  along  the  skyline 

8 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

like  a  terrible  army  in  grey,  and  masses  of 
villas  every  year  came  skirmishing  down 
our  valleys.  Our  coverts  were  mostly  on 
the  hills,  and  as  the  town  came  down  upon 
the  valleys  the  foxes  used  to  leave  them 
and  go  right  away  out  |of  the  county  and 
they  never  returned.  I  think  they  went 
by  night  and  moved  great  distances.  Well 
it  was  early  April  and  we  had  drawn  blank 
all  day,  and  at  the  last  draw  of  all,  the  very 
last  of  the  season,  we  found  a  fox.  He  left 
the  covert  with  his  back  to  London  and  its 
railways  and  villas  and  wire  and  slipped 
away  towards  the  chalk  country  and  open 
Kent.  I  felt  as  I  once  felt  as  a  child  on  one 
summer's  day  when  I  found  a  door  in  a 
garden  where  I  played  left  luckily  ajar,  and 
I  pushed  it  open  and  the  wide  lands  were 
before  me  and  waving  fields  of  corn. 

We  settled  down  into  a  steady  gallop  and 
the  fields  began  to  drift  by  under  us,  and  a 
great  wind  arose  full  of  fresh  breath.  We 
left  the  clay  lands  where  the  bracken  grows 
and  came  to  a  valley  at  the  edge  of  the  chalk. 
As  we  went  down  into  it  we  saw  the  fox  go 
up  the  other  side  like  a  shadow  that  crosses 
the  evening,  and  glide  into  a  wood  that 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

stood  on  the  top.  We  saw  a  flash  of  prim- 
roses in  the  wood  and  we  were  out  the  other 
side,  hounds  hunting  perfectly  and  the  fox 
still  going  absolutely  straight.  It  began 
to  dawn  on  me  then  that  we  were  in  for  a 
great  hunt,  I  took  a  deep  breath  when  I 
thought  of  it;  the  taste  of  the  air  of  that 
perfect  Spring  afternoon  as  it  came  to  one 
galloping,  and  the  thought  of  a  great  run, 
were  together  like  some  old  rare  wine. 
Our  faces  now  were  to  another  valley,  large 
fields  led  down  to  it,  with  easy  hedges,  at 
the  bottom  of  it  a  bright  blue  stream  went 
singing  and  a  rambling  village  smoked,  the 
sunlight  on  the  opposite  slopes  danced  like 
a  fairy;  and  all  along  the  top  old  woods  were 
frowning,  but  they  dreamed  of  Spring. 
The  "field' 'had  fallen  off  and  were  far  behind 
and  my  only  human  companion  was  James, 
my  old  first  whip,  who  had  a  hound's  in- 
stinct, and  a  personal  animosity  against  a 
fox  that  even  embittered  his  speech. 

Across  the  valley  the  fox  went  as  straight 
as  a  railway  line,  and  again  we  went  with- 
out a  check  straight  through  the  woods  at 
the  top.  I  remember  hearing  men  sing  or 
shout  as  they  walked  home  from  work,  and 

10 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

sometimes  children  whistled;  the  sounds 
came  up  from  the  village  to  the  woods  at 
the  top  of  the  valley.  After  that  we  saw 
no  more  villages,  but  valley  after  valley 
arose  and  fell  before  us  as  though  we  were 
voyaging  some  strange  and  stormy  sea,  and 
all  the  way  before  us  the  fox  went  dead  up- 
wind like  the  fabulous  Flying  Dutchman. 
There  was  no  one  in  sight  now  but  my  first 
whip  and  me,  we  had  both  of  us  got  on  to 
our  second  horses  as  we  drew  the  last  covert. 

Two  or  three  times  we  checked  in  those 
great  lonely  valleys  beyond  the  village,  but 
I  began  to  have  inspirations,  I  felt  a  strange 
certainty  within  me  that  this  fox  was  going 
on  straight  up-wind  till  he  died  or  until 
night  came  and  we  could  hunt  no  longer,  so 
I  reversed  ordinary  methods  and  only  cast 
straight  ahead  and  always  we  picked  up 
the  scent  again  at  once.  I  believe  that  this 
fox  was  the  last  one  left  in  the  villa-haunted 
lands  and  that  he  was  prepared  to  leave 
them  for  remote  uplands  far  from  men,  that 
if  we  had  come  the  following  day  he  would 
not  have  been  there,  and  that  we  just  hap- 
pened to  hit  off  his  journey. 

Evening  began  to  descend  upon  the 
11 


The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

valleys,  still  the  hounds  drifted  on,  like  the 
lazy  but  unresting  shadows  of  clouds  upon 
a  summer's  day,  we  heard  a  shepherd  calling 
to  his  dog,  we  saw  two  maidens  move  to- 
wards a  hidden  farm,  one  of  them  singing 
softly;  no  other  sounds,  but  ours,  disturbed 
the  leisure  and  the  loneliness  of  haunts  that 
seemed  not  yet  to  have  known  the  inven- 
tions of  steam  and  gun-powder  (even  as 
China,  they  say,  in  some  of  her  furthest 
mountains  does  not  yet  know  that  she  has 
fought  Japan). 

And  now  the  day  and  our  horses  were 
wearing  out,  but  that  resolute  fox  held  on. 
I  began  to  work  out  the  run  and  to  wonder 
where  we  were.  The  last  landmark  I  had 
ever  seen  before  must  have  been  over  five 
miles  back  and  from  there  to  the  start  was 
at  least  ten  miles  more.  If  only  we  could 
kill!  Then  the  sun  set.  I  wondered  what 
chance  we  had  of  killing  our  fox.  I  looked 
at  James'  face  as  he  rode  beside  me.  He 
did  not  seem  to  have  lost  any  confidence, 
yet  his  horse  was  as  tired  as  mine.  It  was 
a  good  clear  twilight  and  the  scent  was  as 
strong  as  ever,  and  the  fences  were  easy 
enough,  but  those  valleys  were  terribly 

12  . 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

trying  and  they  still  rolled  on  and  on. 
It  looked  as  if  the  light  would  outlast  all 
possible  endurance  both  of  the  fox  and  the 
horses,  if  the  scent  held  good  and  he  did  not 
go  to  ground,  otherwise  night  would  end  it. 
For  long  we  had  seen  no  houses  and  no 
roads,  only  chalk  slopes  with  the  twilight  on 
them,  and  here  and  there  some  sheep,  and 
scattered  copses  darkening  in  the  evening. 
At  some  moment  I  seemed  to  realise  all  at 
once  that  the  light  was  spent  and  that  dark- 
ness was  hovering,  I  looked  at  James,  he 
was  solemnly  shaking  his  head.  Suddenly 
in  a  little  wooded  valley  we  saw  climb  over 
the  oaks  the  red-brown  gables  of  a  queer 
old  house,  at  that  instant  I  saw  the  fox 
scarcely  heading  by  fifty  yards.  We  blun- 
dered through  a  wood  into  full  sight  of  the 
house,  but  no  avenue  led  up  to  it  or  even 
a  path  nor  were  there  any  signs  of  wheel- 
marks  anywhere.  Already  lights  shone 
here  and  there  in  windows.  We  were  in  a 
park,  and  a  fine  park,  but  unkempt  beyond 
credibility;  brambles  grew  everywhere.  It 
was  too  dark  to  see  the  fox  any  more  but  we 
knew  he  was  dead  beat,  the  hounds  were  just 
before  us, — and  a  four-foot  railing  of  oak. 

13 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

I  shouldn't  have  tried  it  on  a  fresh  horse  at 
the  beginning  of  a  run,  and  here  was  a  horse 
near  his  last  gasp.  But  what  a  run!  an 
event  standing  out  in  a  lifetime,  and  the 
hounds  close  up  on  their  fox,  slipping  into 
the  darkness  as  I  hesitated.  I  decided  to 
try  it.  My  horse  rose  about  eight  inches 
and  took  it  fair  with  his  breast,  and  the  oak 
log  flew  into  handfuls  of  wet  decay  —  it  was 
rotten  with  years.  And  then  we  were  on 
a  lawn  and  at  the  far  end  of  it  the  hounds 
were  tumbling  over  their  fox.  Fox,  horses 
and  light  were  all  done  together  at  the  end 
of  a  twenty-mile  point.  We  made  some 
noise  then,  but  nobody  came  out  of  the 
queer  old  house. 

I  felt  pretty  stiff  as  I  walked  round  to  the 
hall  door  with  the  mask  and  the  brush 
while  James  went  with  the  hounds  and  the 
two  horses  to  look  for  the  stables.  I  rang 
a  bell  marvellously  encrusted  with  rust,  and 
after  a  long  while  the  door  opened  a  little 
way  revealing  a  hall  with  much  old  armour 
in  it  and  the  shabbiest  butler  that  I  have 
ever  known. 

I  asked  him  who  lived  there.  Sir  Rich- 
ard Arlen,  I  explained  that  my  horse 

14 


The  Last  Book,  of  Wonder 

could  go  no  further  that  night  and  that  I 
wished  to  ask  Sir  Richard  Arlen  for  a  bed 
for  the  night. 

"0,  no  one  ever  comes  here,  sir,"  said  the 
butler. 

I  pointed  out  that  I  had  come. 

"I  don't  think  it  would  be  possible,  sir," 
he  said. 

This  annoyed  me  and  I  asked  to  see  Sir 
Richard,  and  insisted  until  he  came.  Then 
I  apologised  and  explained  the  situation. 
He  looked  only  fifty,  but  a  'Varsity  oar  on 
the  wall  with  the  date  of  the  early  seventies, 
made  him  older  than  that;  his  face  had 
something  of  the  shy  look  of  the  hermit; 
he  regretted  that  he  had  not  room  to  put 
me  up.  I  was  sure  that  this  was  untrue, 
also  I  had  to  be  put  up  there,  there  was  no- 
where else  within  miles,  so  I  almost  insisted. 
Then  to  my  astonishment  he  turned  to  the 
butler  and  they  talked  it  over  in  an  under- 
tone. At  last  they  seemed  to  think  that 
they  could  manage  it,  though  clearly  with 
reluctance.  It  was  by  now  seven  o'clock  and 
Sir  Richard  told  me  he  dined  at  half  past 
seven.  There  was  no  question  of  clothes 
for  me  other  than  those  I  stood  in,  as  my 

15 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

host  was  shorter  and  broader.  He  showed 
me  presently  to  the  drawing-room  and  there 
he  reappeared  before  half  past  seven  in 
evening  dress  and  a  white  waistcoat.  The 
drawing-room  was  large  and  contained  old 
furniture  but  it  was  rather  worn  than  ven- 
erable, an  Aubusson  carpet  flapped  about 
the  floor,  the  wind  seemed  momently  to 
enter  the  room,  and  old  draughts  haunted 
corners;  the  stealthy  feet  of  rats  that  were 
never  at  rest  indicated  the  extent  of  the 
ruin  that  time  had  wrought  in  the  wain- 
scot; somewhere  far  off  a  shutter  flapped  to 
and  fro,  the  guttering  candles  were  insuffi- 
cient to  light  so  large  a  room.  The  gloom 
that  these  things  suggested  was  quite  in 
keeping  with  Sir  Richard's  first  remark  to 
me  after  he  entered  the  room:  "I  must 
tell  you,  sir,  that  I  have  led  a  wicked  life. 
O,  a  very  wicked  life." 

Such  confidences  from  a  man  much  older 
than  oneself  after  one  has  known  him  for 
half  an  hour  are  so  rare  that  any  possible 
answer  merely  does  not  suggest  itself.  I 
said  rather  slowly,  "0,  really,"  and  chiefly 
to  forestall  another  such  remark  I  said, 
"What  a  charming  house  you  have." 

16 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "I  have  not  left  it  for 
nearly  forty  years.  Since  I  left  the 'Varsity. 
One  is  young  there,  you  know,  and  one  has 
opportunities;  but  I  make  no  excuses,  no 
excuses."  And  the  door  slipping  its  rusty 
latch,  came  drifting  on  the  draught  into  the 
room,  and  the  long  carpet  flapped  and  the 
hangings  upon  the  walls,  then  the  draught 
fell  rustling  away  and  the  door  slammed  to 
again. 

"Ah,  Marianne,"  he  said,  "we  have  a 
guest  to-night.  Mr.  Linton.  This  is 
Marianne  Gib."  And  everything  became 
clear  to  me.  "Mad,"  I  said  to  myself,  for 
no  one  had  entered  the  room. 

The  rats  ran  up  the  length  of  the  room 
behind  the  wainscot  ceaselessly,  and  the 
wind  unlatched  the  door  again  and  the  folds 
of  the  carpet  fluttered  up  to  our  feet  and 
stopped  there,  for  our  weight  held  it  down. 

"Let  me  introduce  Mr.  Linton,"  said 
my  host  —  "Lady  Mary  Errinjer." 

The  door  slammed  back  again.  I  bowed 
politely.  Even  had  I  been  invited  I  should 
have  humoured  him,  but  it  was  the  very 
least  that  an  uninvited  guest  could  do. 

This  kind  of  thing  happened  eleven  times, 

17 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

the  rustling,  and  the  fluttering  of  the  carpet, 
and  the  footsteps  of  the  rats,  and  the  rest- 
less door,  and  then  the  sad  voice  of  my  host 
introducing  me  to  phantoms.  Then  for 
some  while  we  waited  while  I  struggled 
with  the  situation;  conversation  flowed 
slowly.  And  again  the  draught  came  trail- 
ing up  the  room,  while  the  flaring  candles 
filled  it  with  hurrying  shadows.  "Ah,  late 
again,  Cicely,"  said  my  host  in  his  soft, 
mournful  way.  "Always  late,  Cicely." 
Then  I  went  down  to  dinner  with  that  man 
and  his  mind  and  the  twelve  phantoms  that 
haunted  it.  I  found  a  long  table  with  fine 
old  silver  on  it  and  places  laid  for  fourteen. 
The  butler  was  now  in  evening  dress,  there 
were  fewer  draughts  in  the  dining-room,  the 
scene  was  less  gloomy  there.  "Will  you 
sit  next  to  Rosalind  at  the  other  end,"  Sir 
Richard  said  to  me.  "  She  always  takes  the 
head  of  the  table,  I  wronged  her  most  of  all." 
I  said,  "I  shall  be  delighted." 

I  looked  at  the  butler  closely,  but  never 
did  I  see  by  any  expression  of  his  face  or  by 
anything  that  he  did  any  suggestion  that 
he  waited  upon  less  than  fourteen  people  in 
the  complete  possession  of  all  their  faculties. 

18 


The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

Perhaps  a  dish  appeared  to  be  refused  more 
often  than  taken  but  every  glass  was 
equally  filled  with  champagne.  At  first 
I  found  little  to  say,  but  when  Sir  Richard 
speaking  from  the  far  end  of  the  table  said, 
"You  are  tired,  Mr.  Linton,"  I  was  re- 
minded that  I  owed  something  to  a  host 
upon  whom  I  had  forced  myself.  It  was 
excellent  champagne  and  with  the  help  of 
a  second  glass  I  made  the  effort  to  begin  a 
conversation  with  a  Miss  Helen  Errold  for 
whom  the  place  upon  one  side  of  me  was 
laid.  It  came  more  easy  to  me  very  soon, 
I  frequently  paused  in  my  monologue,  like 
Mark  Anthony,  for  a  reply,  and  some- 
times I  turned  and  spoke  to  Miss  Rosalind 
Smith.  Sir  Richard  at  the  other  end 
talked  sorrowfully  on,  he  spoke  as  a  con- 
demned man  might  speak  to  his  judge, 
and  yet  somewhat  as  a  judge  might  speak 
to  one  that  he  once  condemned  wrongly. 
My  own  mind  began  to  turn  to  mournful 
things.  I  drank  another  glass  of  cham- 
pagne, but  I  was  still  thirsty.  I  felt  as  if 
all  the  moisture  in  my  body  had  been  blown 
away  over  the  downs  of  Kent  by  the  wind 
up  which  we  had  galloped.  Still  I  was  not 

19 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

talking  enough;  my  host  was  looking  at  me. 
I  made  another  effort,  after  all  I  had  some- 
thing to  talk  about,  a  twenty-mile  point  is 
not  often  seen  in  a  lifetime,  especially  south 
of  the  Thames.  I  began  to  describe  the 
run  to  Rosalind  Smith.  I  could  see  then 
that  my  host  was  pleased,  the  sad  look  in 
his  face  gave  a  kind  of  a  flicker,  like  mist 
upon  the  mountains  on  a  miserable  day 
when  a  faint  puff  comes  from  the  sea  and 
the  mist  would  lift  if  it  could.  And  the 
butler  refilled  my  glass  very  attentively. 
I  asked  her  first  if  she  hunted,  and  paused 
and  began  my  story.  I  told  her  where  we 
had  found  the  fox  and  how  fast  and  straight 
he  had  gone,  and  how  I  had  got  through  the 
village  by  keeping  to  the  road,  while  the 
little  gardens  and  wire,  and  then  the  river, 
had  stopped  the  rest  of  the  field.  I  told 
her  the  kind  of  country  that  we  crossed  and 
how  splendid  it  looked  in  the  Spring,  and 
how  mysterious  the  valleys  were  as  soon  as 
the  twilight  came,  and  what  a  glorious 
horse  I  had  and  how  wonderfully  he  went. 
I  was  so  fearfully  thirsty  after  the  great 
hunt  that  I  had  to  stop  for  a  moment  now 
and  then,  but  I  went  on  with  my  descrip- 

20 


The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

tion  of  that  famous  run,  for  I  had  wanned 
to  the  subject,  and  after  all  there  was 
nobody  to  tell  of  it  but  me  except  my  old 
whipper-in, and  "the  old  fellow's  probably 
drunk  by  now,"  I  thought.  I  described  to 
her  minutely  the  exact  spot  in  the  run  at 
which  it  had  come  to  me  clearly  that  this 
was  going  to  be  the  greatest  hunt  in  the 
whole  history  of  Kent.  Sometimes  I  for- 
got incidents  that  had  happened  as  one 
well  may  in  a  run  of  twenty  miles,  and 
then  I  had  to  fill  in  the  gaps  by  inventing. 
I  was  pleased  to  be  able  to  make  the  party 
go  off  well  by  means  of  my  conversation, 
and  besides  that  the  lady  to  whom  I  was 
speaking  was  extremely  pretty:  I  do  not 
mean  in  a  flesh  and  blood  kind  of  way  but 
there  were  little  shadowy  lines  about  the 
chair  beside  me  that  hinted  at  an  unusually 
graceful  figure  when  Miss  Rosalind  Smith 
was  alive;  and  I  began  to  perceive  that 
what  I  first  mistook  for  the  smoke  of  gut- 
tering candles  and  a  table-cloth  waving  in 
the  draught  was  in  reality  an  extremely 
animated  company  who  listened,  and  not 
without  interest,  to  my  story  of  by  far  the 
greatest  hunt  that  the  world  had  ever 

21 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

known:  indeed  I  told  them  that  I  would 
confidently  go  further  and  predict  that 
never  in  the  history  of  the  world  would  there 
be  such  a  run  again.  Only  my  throat  was 
terribly  dry.  And  then  as  it  seemed  they 
wanted  to  hear  more  about  my  horse.  I 
had  forgotten  that  I  had  come  there  on  a 
horse,  but  when  they  reminded  me  it  all 
came  back;  they  looked  so  charming  lean- 
ing over  the  table  intent  upon  what  I  said, 
that  I  told  them  everything  they  wanted 
to  know.  Everything  was  going  so  pleas- 
antly if  only  Sir  Richard  would  cheer  up. 
I  heard  his  mournful  voice  every  now  and 
then  —  these  were  very  pleasant  people 
if  only  he  would  take  them  the  right  way. 
I  could  understand  that  he  regretted  his 
past,  but  the  early  seventies  seemed  cen- 
turies away  and  I  felt  sure  that  he  misunder- 
stood these  ladies,  they  were  not  revenge- 
ful as  he  seemed  to  suppose.  I  wanted  to 
show  him  how  cheerful  they  really  were, 
and  so  I  made  a  joke  and  they  all  laughed 
at  it,  and  then  I  chaffed  them  a  bit,  espe- 
cially Rosalind,  and  nobody  resented  it  in 
the  very  least.  And  still  Sir  Richard  sat 
there  with  that  unhappy  look,  like  one  that 
22 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

has  ended  weeping  because  it  is  vain  and 
has  not  the  consolation  even  of  tears. 

We  had  been  a  long  time  there  and  many 
of7the  candles  had  burned  out,  but  there 
was  light  enough.  I  was  glad  to  have  an 
audience  for  my  exploit,  and  being  happy 
myself  I  was  determined  Sir  Richard  should 
be.  I  made  more  jokes  and  they  still 
laughed  good-naturedly;  some  of  the  jokes 
were  a  little  broad  perhaps  but  no  harm 
was  meant.  And  then  —  I  do  not  wish  to 
excuse  myself —  but  I  had  had  a  harder  day 
than  I  ever  had  had  before  and  without 
knowing  it  I  must  have  been  completely 
exhausted;  in  this  state  the  champagne  had 
found  me,  and  what  would  have  been 
harmless  at  any  other  time  must  somehow 
have  got  the  better  of  me  when  quite  tired 
out  —  anyhow  I  went  too  far,  I  made  some 
joke  —  I  cannot  in  the  least  remember 
what  —  that  suddenly  seemed  to  offend 
them.  I  felt  all  at  once  a  commotion  in  the 
air,  I  looked  up  and  saw  that  they  had  all 
arisen  from  the  table  and  were  sweeping 
towards  the  door:  I  had  not  time  to  open  it 
but  it  blew  open  on  a  wind,  I  could  scarcely 
see  what  Sir  Richard  was  doing  because 

23 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

only  two  candles  were  left,  I  think  the  rest 
blew  out  when  the  ladies  suddenly  rose.  I 
sprang  up  to  apologise,  to  assure  them  — 
and  then  fatigue  overcame  me  as  it  had 
overcome  my  horse  at  the  last  fence,  I 
clutched  at  the  table  but  the  cloth  came 
away  and  then  I  fell.  The  fall,  and  the 
darkness  on  the  floor  and  the  pent  up 
fatigue  of  the  day  overcame  me  all  three 
together. 

The  sun  shone  over  glittering  fields  and 
in  at  a  bedroom  window  and  thousands  of 
birds  were  chanting  to  the  Spring,  and  there 
I  was  in  an  old  four-poster  bed  in  a  quaint 
old  panelled  bedroom,  fully  dressed  and 
wearing  long  muddy  boots;  someone  had 
taken  my  spurs  and  that  was  all.  For  a 
moment  I  failed  to  realise  and  then  it  all 
came  back,  my  enormity  and  the  pressing 
need  of  an  abject  apology  to  Sir  Richard. 
I  pulled  an  embroidered  bell  rope  until  the 
butler  came.  He  came  in  perfectly  cheerful 
and  indescribably  shabby.  I  asked  him  if 
Sir  Richard  was  up,  and  he  said  he  had  just 
gone  down,  and  told  me  to  my  amazement 
that  it  was  twelve  o'clock.  I  asked  to  be 
shown  in  to  Sir  Richard  at  once.  He  was  in  his 

24 


The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

smoking-room.     "Good  morning,"  he  said 
cheerfully  the  moment  I  went  in.     I  went 
directly  to  the  matter  in  hand.     "I  fear 
that  I  insulted  some  ladies  in  your  house  - 
I  began. 

"You  did  indeed,"  he  said,  "You  did  in- 
deed." And  then  he  burst  into  tears  and 
took  me  by  the  hand.  "How  can  I  ever 
thank  you?"  he  said  to  me  then.  "We 
have  been  thirteen  at  table  for  thirty  years 
and  I  never  dared  to  insult  them  because 
I  had  wronged  them  all,  and  now  you  have 
done  it  and  I  know  they  will  never  dine  here 
again."  And  for  a  long  time  he  still  held 
my  hand,  and  then  he  gave  it  a  grip  and  a 
kind  of  a  shake  which  I  took  to  mean  "Good- 
bye" and  I  drew  my  hand  away  then  and 
left  the  house.  And  I  found  James  in  the 
stables  with  the  hounds  and  asked  him 
how  he  had  fared,  and  James,  who  is  a  man 
of  very  few  words,  said  he  could  not  rightly 
remember,  and  I  got  my  spurs  from  the 
butler  and  climbed  on  to  my  horse  and 
slowly  we  rode  away  from  that  queer  old 
house,  and  slowly  we  wended  home,  for  the 
hounds  were  footsore  but  happy  and  the 
horses  were  tired  still.  And  when  we  re- 

25 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

called  that  the  hunting  season  was  ended 
we  turned  our  faces  to  Spring  and  thought 
of  the  new  things  that  try  to  replace  the  old. 
And  that  very  year  I  heard,  and  have  often 
heard  since,  of  dances  and  happier  dinners 
at  Sir  Richard  Aden's  house. 


26 


The  City  on 
Mallington  Moor 


esides  the  old  shepherd  at 
Lingwold  whose  habits  ren- 
der him  unreliable  I  am  prob- 
ably the  only  person  that 
has  ever  seen  the  city  on 
Mallington  Moor. 
I  had  decided  one  year  to  do  no  London 
season;  partly  because  of  the  ugliness  of  the 
things  in  the  shops,  partly  because  of  the 
unresisted  invasions  of  German  bands, 
partly  perhaps  because  some  pet  parrots 
in  the  oblong  where  I  lived  had  learned  to 
imitate  cab- whistles;  but  chiefly  because  of 
late  there  had  seized  me  in  London  a  quite 
unreasonable  longing  for  large  woods  and 
waste  spaces,  while  the  very  thought  of 
little  valleys  underneath  copses  full  of 
bracken  and  foxgloves  was  a  torment  to  me 
and  every  summer  in  London  the  longing 

27 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

grew  worse  till  the  thing  was  becoming 
intolerable.  So  I  took  a  stick  and  a  knap- 
sack and  began  walking  northwards,  start- 
ing at  Tetherington  and  sleeping  at  inns, 
where  one  could  get  real  salt,  and  the  waiter 
spoke  English  and  where  one  had  a  name 
instead  of  a  number;  and  though  the  table- 
cloth might  be  dirty  the  windows  opened 
so  that  the  air  was  clean,  where  one  had  the 
excellent  company  of  farmers  and  men  of 
the  wold,  who  could  not  be  thoroughly 
vulgar,  because  they  had  not  the  money 
to  be  so  even  if  they  had  wished  it.  At 
first  the  novelty  was  delightful,  and  then 
one  day  in  a  queer  old  inn  up  Uthering 
way,  beyond  Lingwold,  I  heard  for  the  first 
time  the  rumour  of  the  city  said  to  be  on 
Mallington  Moor.  They  spoke  of  it  quite 
casually  over  their  glasses  of  beer,  two  farm- 
ersjat  the  inn.  "They  say  the  queer  folk 
be  at  Mallington  with  their  city,"  one 
farmer  said.  "Travelling  they  seem  to  be," 
said  the  other.  And  more  came  in  then  and 
the  rumour  spread.  And  then,  such  are  the 
contradictions  of  our  little  likes  and  dislikes 
and  all  the  whims  that  drive  us,  that  I,  who 
had  come  so  far  to  avoid  cities,  had  a  great 

28 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

longing  all  of  a  sudden  for  throngs  again  and 
the  great  hives  of  Man,  and  then  and  there 
determined  on  that  bright  Sunday  morn- 
ing to  come  to  Mallington  and  there  search 
for  the  city  that  rumour  spoke  of  so 
strangely. 

Mallington  Moor,  from  all  that  they  said 
of  it,  was  hardly  a  likely  place  to  find  a 
thing  by  searching.  It  was  a  huge  high 
moor,  very  bleak  and  desolate  and  alto- 
gether trackless.  It  seemed  a  lonely  place 
from  what  they  said.  The  Normans  when 
they  came  had  called  it  Mai  Lieu  and  after- 
wards Mallintown  and  so  it  changed  to 
Mallington.  Though  what  a  town  can 
ever  have  had  to  do  with  a  place  so  utterly 
desolate  I  do  not  know.  And  before  that 
some  say  that  the  Saxons  called  it  Baplas, 
which  I  believe  to  be  a  corruption  of  Bad 
Place. 

And  beyond  the  mere  rumour  of  a  beau- 
tiful city  all  of  white  marble  and  with  a 
foreign  look  up  on  Mallington  Moor,  beyond 
this  I  could  not  get.  None  of  them  had 
seen  it  himself,  "only  heard  of  it  like,"  and 
my  questions,  rather  than  stimulating  con- 
versation, would  always  stop  it  abruptly. 

29 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

I  was  no  more  fortunate  on  the  road  to  Mal- 
lington  until  the  Tuesday,  when  I  was  quite 
near  it;  I  had  been  walking  two  days  from 
the  inn  where  I  had  heard  the  rumour  and 
could  see  the  great  hill  steep  as  a  headland 
on  which  Mallington  lay,  standing  up  on 
the  skyline:  the  hill  was  covered  with  grass, 
where  anything  grew  at  all,  but  Mallington 
Moor  is  all  heather;  it  is  just  marked  Moor 
on  the  map;  nobody  goes  there  and  they  do 
not  trouble  to  name  it.  It  was  there  where 
the  gaunt  hill  first  came  into  sight,  by  the 
roadside  as  I  enquired  for  the  marble  city 
of  some  labourers  by  the  way,  that  I  was 
directed,  partly  I  think  in  derision,  to  the 
old  shepherd  of  Lingwold.  It  appeared 
that  he,  following  sometimes  sheep  that  had 
strayed,  and  wandering  far  from  Lingwold, 
camQ  sometimes  up  to  the  edge  of  Mal- 
lington Moor,  and  that  he  would  come  back 
from  these  excursions  and  shout  through 
the  villages,  raving  of  a  city  of  white  marble 
and  gold-tipped  minarets.  And  hearing 
me  asking  questions  of  this  city  they  had 
laughed  and  directed  me  to  the  shepherd  of 
Lingwold.  One  well-meant  warning  they  gave 
me  as  I  went — the  old  man  was  not  reliable. 

30 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

And  late  that  evening  I  saw  the  thatches 
of  Lingwold  sheltering  under  the  edge  of 
that  huge  hill  that  Atlas-like  held  up  those 
miles  of  moor  to  the  great  winds  and 
heaven. 

They  knew  less  of  the  city  in  Lingwold 
than  elsewhere  but  they  knew  the  where- 
abouts of  the  man  I  wanted,  though  they 
seemed  a  little  ashamed  of  him.  There  was 
an  inn  in  Lingwold  that  gave  me  shelter, 
whence  in  the  morning,  equipped  with  pur- 
chases, I  set  out  to  find  their  shepherd. 
And  there  he  was  on  the  edge  of  Mallington 
Moor  standing  motionless,  gazing  stupidly 
at  his  sheep;  his  hands  trembled  continually 
and  his  eyes  had  a  blear  look,  but  he  was 
quite  sober,  wherein  all  Lingwold  had 
wronged  him. 

And  then  and  there  I  asked  him  of  the 
city  and  he  said  he  had  never  heard  tell  of 
any  such  place.  And  I  said,  "Come,  come, 
you  must  pull  yourself  together."  And  he 
looked  angrily  at  me;  but  when  he  saw  me 
draw  from  amongst  my  purchases  a  full 
bottle  of  whiskey  and  a  big  glass  he  became 
more  friendly.  As  I  poured  out  the  whis- 
key I  asked  him  again  about  the  marble 

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The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

city  on  Mallington  Moor  but  he  seemed 
quite  honestly  to  know  nothing  about  it. 
The  amount  of  whiskey  he  drank  was  quite 
incredible,  but  I  seldom  express  surprise  and 
once  more  I  asked  him  the  way  to  the  won- 
derful city.  His  hand  was  steadier  now 
and  his  eyes  more  intelligent  and  he  said 
that  he  had  heard  something  of  some  such 
city,  but  his  memory  was  evidently  blurred 
and  he  was  still  unable  to  give  me  useful 
directions.  I  consequently  gave  him  an- 
other tumbler,  which  he  drank  off  like  the 
first  without  any  water,  and  almost  at  once 
he  was  a  different  man.  The  trembling  in 
his  hands  stopped  altogether,  his  eye  became 
as  quick  as  a  younger  man's,  he  answered 
my  questions  readily  and  frankly,  and, 
what  was  more  important  to  me  still,  his 
old  memory  became  alert  and  clear  for  even 
minutest  details.  His  gratitude  to  myself 
I  need  not  mention,  for  I  make  no  pretence 
that  I  bought  the  bottle  of  whiskey  that  the 
old  shepherd  enjoyed  so  much  without  at 
least  some  thought  of  my  own  advantage. 
Yet  itwas  pleasant  to  reflect  that  it  was  due 
to  me  that  he  had  pulled  himself  together 
and  steadied  his  shaking  hand  and  cleared 

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The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

his  mind,  recovered  his  memory  and  his 
self-respect.  He  spoke  to  me  quite  clearly, 
no  longer  slurring  his  words;  he  had  seen 
the  city  first  one  moonlight  night  when  he 
was  lost  in  the  mist  on  the  big  moor,  he  had 
wandered  far  in  the  mist,  and  when  it  lifted 
he  saw  the  city  by  moonlight.  He  had  no 
food,  but  luckily  had  his  flask.  There  never 
was  such  a  city,  not  even  in  books.  Travel- 
lers talked  sometimes  of  Venice  seen  from 
the  sea,  there  might  be  such  a  place  or  there 
might  not,  but,  whether  or  no,  it  was  noth- 
ing to  the  city  on  Mallington  Moor.  Men 
who  read  books  had  talked  to  him  in  his 
time,  hundreds  of  books,  but  they  never 
could  tell  of  any  city  like  this.  Why,  the 
place  was  all  of  marble,  roads,  walls  and 
palaces,  all  pure  white  marble,  and  the  tops 
of  the  tall  thin  spires  were  entirely  of  gold. 
And  they  were  queer  folk  in  the  city  even 
for  foreigners.  And  there  were  camels,  but 
I  cut  him  short  for  I  thought  I  could  judge 
for  myself,  if  there  was  such  a  place,  and,  if 
not,  I  was  wasting  my  time  as  well  as  a  pint 
of  good  whiskey.  So  I  got  him  to  speak  of 
the  way,  and  after  more  circumlocution 
than  I  needed  and  more  talk  of  the  city  he 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

pointed  to  a  tiny  track  on  the  black  earth 
just  beside  us,  a  little  twisty  way  you  could 
hardly  see. 

I  said  the  moor  was  trackless;  untrodden 
of  man  or  dog  it  certainly  was  and  seemed 
to  have  less  to  do  with  the  ways  of  man 
than  any  waste  I  have  seen,  but  the  track 
the  old  shepherd  showed  me,  if  track  it  was, 
was  no  more  than  the  track  of  a  hare  —  an 
elf-path  the  old  man  called  it,  Heaven  knows 
what  he  meant.  And  then  before  I  left 
him  he  insisted  on  giving  me  his  flask  Tyith 
the  queer  strong  rum  it  contained.  Whis- 
key brings  out  in  some  men  melancholy,  in 
some  rejoicing,  with  him  it  was  clearly  gen- 
erosity and  he  insisted  until  I  took  his  rum, 
though  I  did  not  mean  to  drink  it.  It  was 
lonely  up  there,  he  said,  and  bitter  cold  and 
the  city  hard  to  find,  being  set  in  a  hollow, 
and  I  should  need  the  rum,  and  he  had 
never  seen  the  marble  city  except  on  days 
when  he  had  had  his  flask:  he  seemed  to 
regard  that  rusted  iron  flask  as  a  sort  of 
mascot,  and  in  the  end  I  took  it. 

I  followed  that  odd,  faint  track  on  the 
black  earth  under  the  heather  till  I  came  to 
the  big  grey  stone  beyond  the  horizon,  where 

34 


The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

the  track  divides  into  two,  and  I  took  the 
one  to  the  left  as  the  old  man  told  me.  I 
knew  by  another  stone  that  I  saw  far  off 
that  I  had  not  lost  my  way,  nor  the  old  man 
lied. 

And  just  as  I  hoped  to  see  the  city's  ram- 
parts before  the  gloaming  fell  on  that  des- 
olate place,  I  suddenly  saw  a  long  high  wall 
of  whiteness  with  pinnacles  here  and  there 
thrown  up  above  it,  floating  towards  me 
silent  and  grim  as  a  secret,  and  knew  it  for 
that  evil  thing  the  mist.  The  sun,  though 
low,  was  shining  on  every  sprig  of  heather, 
the  green  and  scarlet  mosses  were  shining 
with  it  too,  it  seemed  incredible  that  in  three 
minutes'  time  all  those  colours  would  be 
gone  and  nothing  left  all  round  but  a  grey 
darkness.  I  gave  up  hope  of  finding  the  city 
that  day,  a  broader  path  than  mine  could 
have  been  quite  easily  lost.  I  hastily  chose 
for  my  bed  a  thick  patch  of  heather, 
wrapped  myself  in  a  waterproof  cloak,  and 
lay  down  and  made  myself  comfortable. 
And  then  the  mist  came.  It  came  like  the 
careful  pulling  of  lace  curtains,  then  like  the 
drawing  of  grey  blinds;  it  shut  out  the  hori- 
zon to  the  north,  then  to  the  east  and  west; 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

it  turned  the  whole  sky  white  and  hid  the 
moor;  it  came  down  on  it  like  a  metropolis, 
only  utterly  silent,  silent  and  white  as  tomb- 
stones. 

And  then  I  was  glad  of  that  strange 
strong  rum,  or  whatever  it  was  in  the  flask 
that  the  shepherd  gave  me,  for  I  did  not 
think  that  the  mist  would  clear  till  night, 
and  I  feared  the  night  would  be  cold.  So 
I  nearly  emptied  the  flask;  and,  sooner  than 
I  expected,  I  fell  asleep,  for  the  first  night 
out  as  a  rule  one  does  not  sleep  at  once  but 
is  kept  awake  some  while  by  the  little  winds 
and  the  unfamiliar  sound  of  the  things  that 
wander  at  night,  and  that  cry  to  one  another 
far-off  with  their  queer,  faint  voices;  one 
misses  them  afterwards  when  one  gets  to 
houses  again.  But  I  heard  none  of  these 
sounds  in  the  mist  that  evening. 

And  then  I  woke  and  found  that  the  mist 
was  gone  and  the  sun  was  just  disappearing 
under  the  moor,  and  I  knew  that  I  had  not 
slept  for  as  long  as  I  thought.  And  I  de- 
cided to  go  on  while  I  could,  for  I  thought 
that  I  was  not  very  far  from  the  city. 

I  went  on  and  on  along  the  twisty  track, 
bits  of  the  mist  came  down  and  filled  the 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

hollows  but  lifted  again  at  once  so  that  I 
saw  my  way.  The  twilight  faded  as  I  went, 
a  star  appeared,  and  I  was  able  to  see  the 
track  no  longer.  I  could  go  no  further 
that  night,  yet  before  I  lay  down  to  sleep  I 
decided  to  go  and  look  over  the  edge  of  a 
wide  depression  in  the  moor  that  I  saw  a 
little  way  off.  So  I  left  the  track  and 
walked  a  few  hundred  yards,  and  when  I 
got  to  the  edge  the  hollow  was  full  of  mist 
all  white  underneath  me.  Another  star 
appeared  and  a  cold  wind  arose,  and  with 
the  wind  the  mist  flapped  away  like  a  cur- 
tain. And  there  was  the  city. 

Nothing  the  shepherd  had  said  was  the 
least  untrue  or  even  exaggerated.  The 
poor  old  man  had  told  the  simple  truth, 
there  is  not  a  city  like  it  in  the  world.  What 
he  had  called  thin  spires  were  minarets, 
but  the  little  domes  on  the  top  were  clearly 
pure  gold  as  he  said.  There  were  the  mar- 
ble terraces  he  described  and  the  pure  white 
palaces  covered  with  carving  and  hundreds 
of  minarets.  The  city  was  obviously  of 
the  East  and  yet  where  there  should  have 
been  crescents  on  the  domes  of  the  min- 
arets there  were  golden  suns  with  rays,  and 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

wherever  one  looked  one  saw  things  that 
obscured  its  origin.  I  walked  down  to  it, 
and,  passing  through  a  wicket  gate  of  gold 
in  a  low  wall  of  white  marble,  I  entered  the 
city.  The  heather  went  right  up  to  the 
city's  edge  and  beat  against  the  marble  wall 
whenever  the  wind  blew  it.  Lights  began 
to  twinkle  from  high  windows  of  blue  glass 
as  I  walked  up  the  white  street,  beautiful 
copper  lanterns  were  lit  up  and  let  down 
from  balconies  by  silver  chains,  from  doors 
ajar  came  the  sound  of  voices  singing,  and 
then  I  saw  the  men.  Their  faces  were 
rather  grey  than  black,  and  they  wore  beau- 
tiful robes  of  coloured  silk  with  hems  em- 
broidered with  gold  and  some  with  copper, 
and  sometimes  pacing  down  the  marble 
ways  with  golden  baskets  hung  on  each 
side  of  them  I  saw  the  camels  of  which  the 
old  shepherd  spoke. 

The  people  had  kindly  faces,  but,  though 
they  were  evidently  friendly  to  strangers, 
I  could  not  speak  with  them  being  ignorant 
of  their  language,  nor  were  the  sounds  of 
the  syllables  they  used  like  any  language 
I  had  ever  heard:  they  sounded  more  like 
grouse. 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

When  I  tried  to  ask  them  by  signs  whence 
they  had  come  with  their  city  they  would 
only  point  to  the  moon,  which  was  bright 
and  full  and  was  shining  fiercely  on  those 
marble  ways  till  the  city  danced  in  light. 
And  now  there  began  appearing  one  by  one, 
slipping  softly  out  through  windows,  men 
with  stringed  instruments  in  the  balconies. 
They  were  strange  instruments  with  huge 
bulbs  of  wood,  and  they  played  softly  on 
them  and  very  beautifully,  and  their  queer 
voices  softly  sang  to  the  music  weird  dirges 
of  the  griefs  of  their  native  land  wherever 
that  may  be.  And  far  off  in  the  heart  of 
the  city  others  were  singing  too,  the  sound 
of  it  came  to  me  wherever  I  roamed,  not 
loud  enough  to  disturb  my  thoughts,  but 
gently  turning  the  mind  to  pleasant  things. 
Slender  carved  arches  of  marble,  as  delicate 
almost  as  lace,  crossed  and  re-crossed  the 
ways  wherever  I  went.  There  was  none  of 
that  hurry  of  which  foolish  cities  boast, 
nothing  ugly  or  sordid  so  far  as  I  could  see. 
I  saw  that  it  was  a  city  of  beauty  and  song. 
I  wondered  how  they  had  travelled  with  all 
that  marble,  how  they  had  laid  it  down  on 
Mallington  Moor,  whence  they  had  come 

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The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

and  what  their  resources  were,  and  deter- 
mined to  investigate  closely  next  morning, 
for  the  old  shepherd  had  not  troubled  his 
head  to  think  how  the  city  came,  he  had 
only  noted  that  the  city  was  there  (and  of 
course  no  one  believed  him,  though  that  is 
partly  his  fault  for  his  dissolute  ways). 
But  at  night  one  can  see  little  and  I  had 
walked  all  day,  so  I  determined  to  find  a 
place  to  rest  in.  And  just  as  I  was  won- 
dering whether  to  ask  for  shelter  of  those  silk- 
robed  men  by  signs  or  whether  to  sleep  out- 
side the  walls  and  enter  again  in  the  morn- 
ing, I  came  to  a  great  archway  in  one  of  the 
marble  houses  with  two  black  curtains, 
embroidered  below  with  gold,  hanging  across 
it.  Over  the  archway  were  carved  appar- 
ently in  many  tongues  the  words:  "Here 
strangers  rest."  In  Greek,  Latin  and 
Spanish  the  sentence  was  repeated  and 
there  was  writing  also  in  the  language  that 
you  see  on  the  walls  of  the  great  temples  of 
Egypt,  and  Arabic  and  what  I  took  to  be 
early  Assyrian  and  one  or  two  languages  I 
had  never  seen.  I  entered  through  the 
curtains  and  found  a  tesselated  marble 
court  with  golden  braziers  burning  sleepy 
40 


The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

incense  swinging  by  chains  from  the  roof, 
all  round  the  walls  were  comfortable  mat- 
tresses lying  upon  the  floor  covered  with 
cloths  and  silks.  It  must  have  been  ten 
o'clock  and  I  was  tired.  Outside  the  music 
still  softly  filled  the  streets,  a  man  had  set  a 
lantern  down  on  the  marble  way,  five  or  six 
sat  down  round  him,  and  he  was  sonorously 
telling  them  a  story.  Inside  there  were 
some  already  asleep  on  the  beds,  in  the 
middle  of  the  wide  court  under  the  braziers 
a  woman  dressed  in  blue  was  singing  very 
gently,  she  did  not  move,  but  sung  on  and 
on,  I  never  heard  a  song  that  was  so  sooth- 
ing. I  lay  down  on  one  of  the  mattresses 
by  the  wall,  which  was  all  inlaid  with 
mosaics,  and  pulled  over  me  some  of  the 
cloths  with  their  beautiful  alien  work,  and 
almost  immediately  my  thoughts  seemed  part 
of  the  song  that  the  woman  was  singing  in  the 
midst  of  the  court  under  the  golden  braziers 
that  hung  from  the  high  roof,  and  the  song 
turned  them  to  dreams,  and  so  I  fell  asleep. 
A  small  wind  having  arisen,  I  was  awak- 
ened by  a  sprig  of  heather  that  beat  con- 
tinually against  my  face.  It  was  morning  on 
Mallington  Moor?and  the  city  was  quite  gone, 

41 


Why  the  Milkman 
Shudders 

When  he  Perceives  the  T>awn 


n  the  Hall  of  the  Ancient 
Company  of  Milkmen  round 
the  great  fireplace  at  the  end, 
when  the  winter  logs  are  burn- 
ing and  all  the  craft  are  as- 
sembled they  tell  to-day,  as 
their  grandfathers  told  before  them,  why 
the  milkman  shudders  when  he  perceives 
the  dawn. 

When  dawn  comes  creeping  over  the 
edges  of  hills,  peers  through  the  tree  trunks 
making  wonderful  shadows,  touches  the 
tops  of  tall  columns  of  smoke  going  up  from 
awakening  cottages  in  the  valleys,  and 
breaks  all  golden  over  Kentish  fields,  when 
going  on  tip-toe  thence  it  comes  to  the  walls 
of  London  and  slips  all  shyly  up  those 
gloomy  streets  the  milkman  perceives  it 
and  shudders. 

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The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

A  man  may  be  a  Milkman's  Working 
Apprentice,  may  know  what  borax  is  and 
how  to  mix  it,  yet  not  for  that  is  the  story 
told  to  bun.  There  are  five  men  alone  that 
tell  that  story,  five  men  appointed  by  the 
Master  of  the  Company,  by  whom  each 
place  is  filled  as  it  falls  vacant,  and  if  you 
do  not  hear  it  from  one  of  them  you  hear 
the  story  from  none  and  so  can  never  know 
why  the  milkman  shudders  when  he  per- 
ceives the  dawn. 

It  is  the  way  of  one  of  these  five  men, 
greybeards  all  and  milkmen  from  infancy, 
to  rub  his  hands  by  the  fire  when  the  great 
logs  burn,  and  to  settle  himself  more  easily 
in  his  chair,  perhaps  to  sip  some  drink  far 
other  than  milk,  then  to  look  round  to  see 
that  none  are  there  to  whom  it  would  not 
be  fitting  the  tale  should  be  told  and,  look- 
ing from  face  to  face  and  seeing  none  but 
the  men  of  the  Ancient  Company,  and 
questioning  mutely  the  rest  of  the  five  with 
his  eyes,  if  some  of  the  five  be  there,  and 
receiving  their  permission,  to  cough  and  to 
tell  the  tale.  And  a  great  hush  falls  in  the 
Hall  of  the  Ancient  Company,  and  some- 
thing about  the  shape  of  the  roof  and  the 

43 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

rafters  makes  the  tale  resonant  all  down 
the  hall  so  that  the  youngest  hears  it  far 
away  from  the  fire  and  knows,  and  dreams 
of  the  day  when  perhaps  he  will  tell  himself 
why  the  milkman  shudders  when  he  per- 
ceives the  dawn. 

Not  as  one  tells  some  casual  fact  is  it 
told,  nor  is  it  commented  on  from  man  to 
man,  but  it  is  told  by  that  great  fire  only  and 
when  the  occasion  and  the  stillness  of  the 
room  and  the  merit  of  the  wine  and  the 
profit  of  all  seem  to  warrant  it  in  the  opinion 
of  the  five  deputed  men:  then  does  one  of 
them  tell  it,  as  I  have  said,  not  heralded 
by  any  master  of  ceremonies  but  as  though 
it  arose  out  of  the  warmth  of  the  fire  before 
which  his  knotted  hands  would  chance  to 
be;  not  a  thing  learned  by  rote,  but  told 
differently  by  each  teller,  and  differently 
according  to  his  mood,  yet  never  has  one  of 
them  dared  to  alter  its  salient  points,  there 
is  none  so  base  among  the  Company  of 
Milkmen.  The  Company  of  Powderers 
for  the  Face  know  of  this  story  and  have 
envied  it,  the  Worthy  Company  of  Chin- 
Barbers,  and  the  Company  of  Whiskerers; 
but  none  have  heard  it  in  the  Milkmen's 

44 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

Hall,  through  whose  wall  no  rumour  of  the 
secret  goes,  and  though  they  have  invented 
tales  of  their  own  Antiquity  mocks  them. 

This  mellow  story  was  ripe  with  hon- 
ourable years  when  milkmen  wore  beaver 
hats,  its  origin  was  still  mysterious  when 
white  smocks  were  the  vogue,  men  asked 
one  another  when  Stuarts  were  on  the 
throne  (and  only  the  Ancient  Company 
knew  the  answer)  why  the  milkman  shud- 
ders when  he  perceives  the  dawn.  It  is  all 
for  envy  of  this  tale's  reputation  that  the 
Company  of  Powderers  for  the  Face  have 
invented  the  tale  that  they  too  tell  of  an 
evening,"  Why  the  Dog  Barks  when  he  hears 
the  step  of  the  Baker";  and  because  prob- 
ably all  men  know  that  tale  the  Company 
of  Powderers  for  the  Face  have  dared  to 
consider  it  famous.  Yet  it  lacks  mystery 
and  is  not  ancient,  is  not  fortified  with  clas- 
sical allusion,  has  no  secret  lore,  is  common 
to  all  who  care  for  an  idle  tale,  and  shares 
with  "The  Wars  of  the  Elves,"  the  Calf- 
butcher's  tale,  and  "The  Story  of  the 
Unicorn  and  the  Rose,"  which  is  the  tale  of 
the  Company  of  Horse-drivers,  their  obvious 
inferiority. 

45 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

But  unlike  all  these  tales  so  new  to  time, 
and  many  another  that  the  last  two  cen- 
turies tell,  the  tale  that  the  milkmen  tell 
ripples  wisely  on,  so  full  of  quotation  from 
the  profoundest  writers,  so  full  of  recondite 
allusion,  so  deeply  tinged  with  all  the  wis- 
dom of  man  and  instructive  with  the  ex- 
perience of  all  times  that  they  that  hear  it 
in  the  Milkmen's  Hall  as  they  interpret 
allusion  after  allusion  and  trace  obscure 
quotation  lose  idle  curiosity  and  forget  to 
question  why  the  milkman  shudders  when 
he  perceives  the  dawn. 

You  also,  0  my  reader,  give  not  yourself 
up  to  curiosity.  Consider  of  how  many  it 
is  the  bane.  Would  you  to  gratify  this  tear 
away  the  mystery  from  the  Milkmen's  Hall 
and  wrong  the  Ancient  Company  of  Milk- 
men? Would  they  if  all  the  world  knew  it 
and  it  became  a  common  thing  tell  that  tale 
any  more  that  they  have  told  for  the  last 
four  hundred  years?  Rather  a  silence 
would  settle  upon  their  hall  and  a  universal 
regret  for  the  ancient  tale  and  the  ancient 
winter  evenings.  And  though  curiosity 
were  a  proper  consideration  yet  even  then 
this  is  not  the  proper  place  nor  this  the 

46 


The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

proper  occasion  for  the  Tale.  For  the 
proper  place  is  only  the  Milkmen's  Hall  and 
the  proper  occasion  only  when  logs  burn 
well  and  when  wine  has  been  deeply  drunken, 
then  when  the  candles  were  burning  well  in 
long  rows  down  to  the  dimness,  down  to  the 
darkness  and  mystery  that  lie  at  the  end  of 
the  hallj  then  were  you  one  of  the  Company, 
and  were  I  one  of  the  five,  would  I  rise  from 
my  seat  by  the  fireside  and  tell  you  with  all 
the  embellishments  that  it  has  gleaned  from 
the  ages  that  story  that  is  the  heirloom  of 
the  milkmen.  And  the  long  candles  would 
burn  lower  and  lower  and  gutter  and  gutter 
away  till  they  liquified  in  their  sockets,  and 
draughts  would  blow  from  the  shadowy 
end  of  the  hall  stronger  and  stronger  till  the 
shadows  came  after  them,  and  still  I  would 
hold  you  with  that  treasured  story,  not  by 
any  wit  of  mine  but  all  for  the  sake  of  its 
glamour  and  the  times  out  of  which  it  came; 
one  by  one  the  candles  would  flare  and  die 
and,  when  all  were  gone,  by  the  light  of 
ominous  sparks  when  each  milkman's  face 
looks  fearful  to  his  fellow,  you  would  know, 
as  now  you  cannot,  why  the  milkman 
shudders  when  he  perceives  the  dawn. 

47 


The  Bad  Old 
Woman  in  Black 


he  bad  old  woman  in  black 
ran  down  the  street  of  the 
ox-butchers. 

Windows  at  once  were 
opened  high  up  in  those  crazy 
gables;  heads  were  thrust  out: 
it  was  she.  Then  there  arose  the  counsel 
of  anxious  voices,  calling  sideways  from 
window  to  window  or  across  to  opposite 
houses.  Why  was  she  there  with  her 
sequins  and  bugles  and  old  black  gown? 
Why  had  she  left  her  dreaded  house?  On 
what  fell  errand  she  hasted? 

They  watched  her  lean,  lithe  figure,  and 
the  wind  in  that  old  black  dress,  and  soon 
she  was  gone  from  the  cobbled  street  and 
under  the  town's  high  gateway.  She  turned 
at  once  to  her  right  and  was  hid  from  the 

48 


THE    BAD    OLD    WOMAN    IN    BLACK    RAN    DOWN    THE    STREET    OF    THE 
OX-BUTCHERS 


The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

view  of  the  houses.  Then  they  all  ran 
down  to  their  doors,  and  small  groups 
formed  on  the  pavement;  there  they  took 
counsel  together,  the  eldest  speaking  first. 
Of  what  they  had  seen  they  said  nothing, 
for  there  was  no  doubt  it  was  she;  it  was  of 
the  future  they  spoke,  and  the  future  only. 

In  what  notorious  thing  would  her  errand 
end?  What  gains  had  tempted  her  out 
from  her  fearful  home?  What  brilliant  but 
sinful  scheme  had  her  genius  planned? 
Above  all,  what  future  evil  did  this  portend? 
Thus  at  first  it  was  only  questions.  And 
then  the  old  grey-beards  spoke,  each  one  to 
a  little  group;  they  had  seen  her  out  before, 
had  known  her  when  she  was  younger,  and 
had  noted  the  evil  things  that  had  followed 
her  goings:  the  small  groups  listened  well 
to  their  low  and  earnest  voices.  No  one 
asked  questions  now  or  guessed  at  her  in- 
famous errand,  but  listened  only  to  the  wise 
old  men  who  knew  the  things  that  had  been, 
and  who  told  the  younger  men  of  the  dooms 
that  had  come  before. 

Nobody  knew  how  many  times  she  had 
left  her  dreaded  house;  but  the  oldest 
recounted  all  the  times  that  they  knew,  and 

40 


The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

the  way  she  had  gone  each  time,  and  the 
doom  that  had  followed  her  going;  and  two 
could  remember  the  earthquake  that  there 
was  in  the  street  of  the  shearers. 

So  were  there  many  tales  of  the  times 
that  were,  told  on  the  pavement  near  the 
old  green  doors  by  the  edge  of  the  cobbled 
street,  and  the  experience  that  the  aged 
men  had  bought  with  their  white  hairs 
might  be  had  cheap  by  the  young.  But 
from  all  their  experience  only  this  was  clear, 
that  never  twice  in  their  lives  had  she  done 
the  same  infamous  thing,  and  that  the  same 
calamity  twice  had  never  followed  her 
goings.  Therefore  it  seemed  that  means 
were  doubtful  and  few  for  finding  out  what 
thing  was  about  to  befall;  and  an  ominous 
feeling  of  gloom  came  down  on  the  street 
of  the  ox-butchers.  And  in  the  gloom 
grew  fears  of  the  very  worst.  This  comfort 
they  only  had  when  they  put  their  fear  into 
words  —  that  the  doom  that  followed  her 
goings  had  never  yet  been  anticipated. 
One  feared  that  „  with  magic  she  meant  to 
move  the  moon;  and  he  would  have  dammed 
the  high  tide  on  the  neighbouring  coast, 
knowing  that  as  the  moon  attracted  the  sea 

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The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

the  sea  must  attract  the  moon,  and  hoping 
by  his  device  to  humble  her  spells.  An- 
other would  have  fetched  iron  bars  and 
clamped  them  across  the  street,  remember- 
ing the  earthquake  there  was  in  the  street 
of  the  shearers.  Another  would  have  hon- 
oured his  household  gods,  the  little  cat- 
faced  idols  seated  above  his  hearth,  gods  to 
whom  magic  was  no  unusual  thing,  and, 
having  paid  their  fees  and  honoured  them 
well,  would  have  put  the  whole  case  before 
them.  His  scheme  found  favour  with  many, 
and  yet  at  last  was  rejected,  for  others  ran 
indoors  and  brought  out  their  gods  too,  to 
be  honoured,  till  there  was  a  herd  of  gods 
all  seated  there  on  the  pavement;  yet 
would  they  have  honoured  them  and  put 
their  case  before  them  but  that  a  fat  man 
ran  up  last  of  all,  carefully  holding  under  a 
reverent  arm  his  own  two  hound-faced  gods, 
though  he  knew  well  —  as,  indeed,  all  men 
must  —  that  they  were  notoriously  at  war 
with  the  little  cat-faced  idols.  And  al- 
though the  animosities  natural  to  faith  had 
all  been  lulled  by  the  crisis,  yet  a  look  of 
anger  had  come  in  the  cat-like  faces  that  no 
one  dared  disregard,  and  all  perceived  that 

51 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

if  they  stayed  a  moment  longer  there  would 
be  flaming  around  them  the  jealousy  of  the 
gods;  so  each  man  hastily  took  his  idols 
home,  leaving  the  fat  man  insisting  that  his 
hound-faced  gods  should  be  honoured. 

Then  were  there  schemes  again  and  voices 
raised  in  debate,  and  many  new  dangers 
feared  and  new  plans  made. 

But  in  the  end  they  made  no  defence 
against  danger,  for  they  knew  not  what  it 
would  be,  but  wrote  upon  parchment  as  a 
warning  and  in  order  that  all  might  know: 
"The  bad  old  woman  in  black  ran  down  the 
street  of  the  ox-butchers." 


The  Bird  of  the 
Difficult  Eye 


:>servant  men  and  women  that 
mow  their  Bond  Street  well 
ll  appreciate  my  astonish- 
ment when  in  a  jewellers'  shop 
perceived  that  nobody  was 
'urtively  watching  me.  Not 
only  this  but  when  I  even  picked  up  a  little 
carved  crystal  to  examine  it  no  shop-assist- 
ants crowded  round  me.  I  walked  the 
whole  length  of  the  shop,  still  no  one  politely 
followed. 

Seeing  from  this  that  some  extraordinary 
revolution  had  occurred  in  the  jewelry  bus- 
iness I  went  with  my  curiosity  well  aroused 
to  a  queer  old  person  half  demon  and  half 
man  who  has  an  idol-shop  in  a  byway  of 
the  City  and  who  keeps  me  informed  of 
affairs  of  the  Edge  of  the  World.  And 
briefly  over  a  pinch  of  heather  incense  that 

53 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

he  takes  by  way  of  snuff  he  gave  me  this  tre- 
mendous information:  that  Mr.  Neepy 
Thang  the  son  of  Thangobrind  had  returned 
from  the  Edge  of  the  World  and  was  even 
now  in  London. 

The  information  may  not  appear  tre- 
mendous to  those  unacquainted  with  the 
source  of  jewelry;  but  when  I  say  that  the 
only  thief  employed  by  any  West-end 
jeweller  since  famous  Thangobrind's  dis- 
tressing doom  is  this  same  Neepy  Thang, 
and  that  for  lightness  of  fingers  and  swift- 
ness of  stockinged  foot  they  have  none 
better  in  Paris,  it  will  be  understood  why 
the  Bond-street  jewellers  no  longer  cared 
what  became  of  their  old  stock. 

There  were  big  diamonds  in  London  that 
summer  and  a  few  considerable  sapphires. 
In  certain  astounding  kingdoms  behind 
the  East  strange  sovereigns  missed  from 
their  turbans  the  heirlooms  of  ancient  wars, 
and  here  and  there  the  keepers  of  crown 
jewels  who  had  not  heard  the  stockinged  feet 
of  Thang,  were  questioned  and  died  slowly. 

And  the  jewellers  gave  a  little  dinner  to 
Thang  at  the  Hotel  Great  Magnificent;  the 
windows  had  not  been  opened  for  five  years 

54 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

and  there  was  wine  at  a  guinea  a  bottle  that 
you  could  not  tell  from  champagne  and 
cigars  at  half  a  crown  with  a  Havana  label. 
Altogether  it  was  a  splendid  evening  for 
Thang. 

But  I  have  to  tell  of  a  far  sadder  thing 
than  a  dinner  at  a  hotel.  The  public 
require  jewelry  and  jewelry  must  be  ob- 
tained. I  have  to  tell  of  Neepy  Thang's 
last  journey. 

That  year  the  fashion  was  emeralds.  A 
man  named  Green  had  recently  crossed  the 
Channel  on  a  bicycle  and  the  jewellers  said 
that  a  green  stone  would  be  particularly 
appropriate  to  commemorate  the  event  and 
recommended  emeralds. 

Now  a  certain  money-lender  of  Cheapside 
who  had  just  been  made  a  peer  had  divided 
his  gains  into  three  equal  parts;  one  for  the 
purchase  of  the  peerage,  country-house  and 
park,  and  the  twenty  thousand  pheasants 
that  are  absolutely  essential,  and  one  for  the 
upkeep  of  the  position,  while  the  third  he 
banked  abroad,  partly  to  cheat  the  native  tax- 
gatherer  and  partly  because  it  seemed  to 
him  that  the  days  of  the  Peerage  were  few 
and  that  he  might  at  any  moment  be  called 

55 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

upon  to  start  afresh  elsewhere.  In  the 
upkeep  of  the  position  he  included  jew- 
ellry  for  his  wife  and  so  it  came  about  that 
Lord  Castlenorman  placed  an  order  with  two 
well-known  Bond-street  jewellers  named 
Messrs.  Grosvenor  and  Campbell  to  the  ex- 
tent of  £100,000  for  a  few  reliable  emeralds. 

But  the  emeralds  in  stock  were  mostly 
small  and  shop-soiled  and  Neepy  Thang 
had  to  set  out  at  once  before  he  had  had  as 
much  as  a  week  in  London.  I  will  briefly 
sketch  his  project.  Not  many  knew  it, 
for  where  the  form  of  business  is  blackmail 
the  fewer  creditors  you  have  the  better 
(which  of  course  in  various  degrees  applies 
at  all  times). 

On  the  shores  of  the  risky  seas  of  Shiroora 
Shan  grows  one  tree  only  so  that  upon  its 
branches  if  anywhere  in  the  world  there 
must  build  its  nest  the  Bird  of  the  Difficult 
Eye.  Neepy  Thang  had  come  by  this  in- 
formation, which  was  indeed  the  truth, 
that  if  the  bird  migrated  to  Fairyland  before 
the  three  eggs  hatched  out  they  would  un- 
doubtedly all  turn  into  emeralds,  while  if  they 
hatched  out  first  it  would  be  a  bad  business. 

When  he  had  mentioned  these  eggs  to 

50 


The  Last  Bool^  °f  Wonder 

Messrs.  Grosvenor  and  Campbell  they  had 
said,  "The  very  thing":  they  were  men  of 
few  words,  in  English,  for  it  was  not  their 
native  tongue. 

So  Neepy  Thang  set  out.  He  bought 
the  purple  ticket  at  Victoria  Station.  He 
went  by  Herne  Hill,  Bromley  and  Bickley 
and  passed  St.  Mary  Cray.  At  Eynsford 
he  changed  and  taking  a  footpath  along  a 
winding  valley  went  wandering  into  the 
hills.  And  at  the  top  of  a  hill  in  a  little 
wood,  where  all  the  anemones  long  since 
were  over  and  the  perfume  of  mint  and 
thyme  from  outside  came  drifting  in  with 
Thang,  he  found  once  more  the  familiar 
path,  age-old  and  fair  as  wonder,  that  leads 
to  the  Edge  of  the  World.  Little  to  him 
were  its  sacred  memories  that  are  one  with 
the  secret  of  earth,  for  he  was  out  on  bus- 
iness, and  little  would  they  be  to  me  if  I 
ever  put  them  on  paper.  Let  it  suffice 
that  he  went  down  that  path  going  further 
and  further  from  the  fields  we  know,  and  all 
the  way  he  muttered  to  himself,  "What  if 
the  eggs  hatch  out  and  it  be  a  bad  business ! " 
The  glamour  that  is  at  all  times  upon  those 
lonely  lands  that  lie  at  the  back  of  the 

57 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

chalky  hills  of  Kent  intensified  as  he  went 
upon  his  journeys.  Queerer  and  queerer 
grew  the  things  that  he  saw  by  little  World- 
End  Path.  Many  a  twilight  descended 
upon  that  journey  with  all  their  mysteries, 
many  a  blaze  of  stars;  many  a  morning  came 
flaming  up  to  a  tinkle  of  silvern  horns;  till 
the  outpost  elves  of  Fairyland  came  in  sight 
and  the  glittering  crests  of  Fairyland's  three 
mountains  betokened  the  journey's  end. 
And  so  with  painful  steps  (for  the  shores  of 
the  world  are  covered  with  huge  crystals) 
he  came  to  the  risky  seas  of  Shiroora  Shan 
and  saw  them  pounding  to  gravel  the 
wreckage  of  fallen  stars,  saw  them  and 
heard  their  roar,  those  shipless  seas  that 
between  earth  and  the  fairies'  homes 
heave  beneath  some  huge  wind  that  is 
none  of  our  four.  And  there  in  the  dark- 
ness on  the  grizzly  coast,  for  darkness 
was  swooping  slantwise  down  the  sky  as 
though  with  some  evil  purpose,  there  stood 
that  lonely,  gnarled  and  deciduous  tree. 
It  was  a  bad  place  to  be  found  in  after 
dark,  and  night  descended  with  multitudes 
of  stars,  beasts  prowling  in  the  blackness 
gluttered  *  at  Neepy  Thang.  And  there  on 

*  See  any  dictionary,  but  in  vain. 
58 


THERE  STOOD  THAT  LONELY,  GNARLED  AND  DECIDUOUS  TREE 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

a  lower  branch  within  easy  reach  he  clearly 
saw  the  Bird  of  the  Difficult  Eye  sitting 
upon  the  nest  for  which  she  is  famous.  Her 
face  was  towards  those  three  inscrutable 
mountains,  far-off  on  the  other  side  of  the 
risky  seas,  whose  hidden  valleys  are  Fairy- 
land. Though  not  yet  autumn  in  the  fields 
we  know,  it  was  close  on  mid-winter  here, 
the  moment  as  Thang  knew  well  when  those 
eggs  hatch  out.  Had  he  miscalculated  and 
arrived  a  minute  too  late?  Yet  the  bird 
was  even  now  about  to  migrate,  her  pinions 
fluttered  and  her  gaze  was  to  ward  Fairy  land. 
Thang  hoped  and  muttered  a  prayer  to  those 
pagan  gods  whose  spite  and  vengeance  he 
had  most  reason  to  fear.  It  seems  that  it 
was  too  late  or  a  prayer  too  small  to  placate 
them,  for  there  and  then  the  stroke  of  mid- 
winter came  and  the  eggs  hatched  out  in 
the  roar  of  Shiroora  Shan  or  ever  the  bird 
was  gone  with  her  difficult  eye  and  it  was  a 
bad  business  indeed  for  Neepy  Thang;  I 
haven't  the  heart  to  tell  you  any  more. 

"'Ere,"  said  Lord  Castlenorman  some 
few  weeks  later  to  Messrs.  Grosvenor  and 
Campbell,  "you  aren't  'arf  taking  your 
time  about  those  emeralds." 

59 


The  Long 

Porter's  Tale 


here  are  things  that  are  known 
only  to  the  long  porter  of 
Tong  Tong  Tarrup  as  he  sits 
and  mumbles  memories  to 
himself  in  the  little  bastion 
gateway. 

He  remembers  the  war  there  was  in  the 
halls  of  the  gnomes;  and  how  the  fairies 
came  for  the  opals  once,  which  Tong  Tong 
Tarrup  has;  and  the  way  that  the  giants 
went  through  the  fields  below,  he  watching 
from  his  gateway:  he  remembers  quests  that 
are  even  yet  a  wonder  to  the  gods.  Who 
dwells  in  those  frozen  houses  on  the  high 
bare  brink  of  the  world  not  even  he  has  told 
me,  and  he  is  held  to  be  garrulous.  Among 
the  elves,  the  only  living  things  ever  seen 
moving  at  that  awful  altitude  where  they 
quarry  turquoise  on  Earth's  highest  crag, 

60 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

his  name  is  a  byword  for  loquacity  where- 
with they  mock  the  talkative. 

His  favourite  story  if  you  offer  him  bash 
—  the  drug  of  which  he  is  fondest,  and  for 
which  he  will  give  his  service  in  war  to  the 
elves  against  the  goblins,  or  vice  -versa  if  the 
goblins  bring  him  more  —  his  favourite 
story,  when  bodily  soothed  by  the  drug  and 
mentally  fiercely  excited,  tells  of  a  quest 
undertaken  ever  so  long  ago  for  nothing 
more  marketable  than  an  old  woman's  song. 

Picture  him  telling  it.  An  old  man, 
lean  and  bearded,  and  almost  monstrously 
long,  that  lolled  in  a  city's  gateway  on  a 
crag  perhaps  ten  miles  high;  the  houses  for 
the  most  part  facing  eastward,  lit  by  the 
sun  and  moon  and  the  constellations  we 
know,  but  one  house  on  the  pinnacle  look- 
ing over  the  edge  of  the  world  and  lit  by  the 
glimmer  of  those  unearthly  spaces  where 
one  long  evening  wears  away  the  stars:  my 
little  offering  of  bash;  a  long  forefinger  that 
nipped  it  at  once  on  a  stained  and  greedy 
thumb  —  all  these  are  in  the  foreground  of 
the  picture.  In  the  background,  the  mys- 
tery of  those  silent  houses  and  of  not  know- 
ing who  their  denizens  were,  or  what  service 

ai 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

they  had  at  the  hands  of  the  long  porter  and 
what  payment  he  had  in  return,  and  whether 
he  was  mortal. 

Picture  him  in  the  gateway  of  this  incred- 
ible town,  having  swallowed  my  bash  in 
silence,  stretch  his  great  length,  lean  back, 
and  begin  to  speak. 

It  seems  that  one  clear  morning  a  hundred 
years  ago,  a  visitor  to  Tong  Tong  Tarrup 
was  climbing  up  from  the  world.  He  had 
already  passed  above  the  snow  and  had  set 
his  foot  on  a  step  of  the  earthward  stairway 
that  goes  down  from  Tong  Tong  Tarrup  on 
to  the  rocks,  when  the  long  porter  saw  him. 
And  so  painfully  did  he  climb  those  easy 
steps  that  the  grizzled  man  on  watch  had 
long  to  wonder  whether  or  not  the  stranger 
brought  him  bash,  the  drug  that  gives  a 
meaning  to  the  stars  and  seems  to  explain 
the  twilight.  And  in  the  end  there  was  not 
a  scrap  of  bash,  and  the  stranger  had  noth- 
ing better  to  offer  that  grizzled  man  than 
his  mere  story  only. 

It  seems  that  the  stranger's  name  was 
Gerald  Jones,  and  he  always  lived  in  Lon- 
don; but  once  as  a  child  he  had  been  on  a 
Northern  moor.  It  was  so  long  ago  that  he 

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did  not  remember  how,  only  somehow  or 
other  he  walked  alone  on  the  moor,  and  all 
the  ling  was  in  flower.  There  was  nothing 
in  sight  but  ling  and  heather  and  bracken, 
except,  far  off  near  the  sunset,  on  indistinct 
hills,  there  were  little  vague  patches  that 
looked  like  the  fields  of  men.  With  eve- 
ning a  mist  crept  up  and  hid  the  hills,  and 
still  he  went  walking  on  over  the  moor. 
And  then  he  came  to  the  valley,  a  tiny  val- 
ley in  the  midst  of  the  moor,  whose  sides 
were  incredibly  steep.  He  lay  down  and 
looked  at  it  through  the  roots  of  the  ling. 
And  a  long,  long  way  below  him,  in  a  garden 
by  a  cottage,  with  hollyhocks  all  round  her 
that  were  taller  than  herself,  there  sat  an 
old  woman  on  a  wooden  chair,  singing  in 
the  evening.  And  the  man  had  taken  a 
fancy  to  the  song  and  remembered  it  after 
in  London,  and  whenever  it  came  to  his  mind 
it  made  him  think  of  evenings  —  the  kind 
you  don't  get  in  London  —  and  he  heard  a 
soft  wind  again  going  idly  over  the  moor 
and  the  bumble-bees  in  a  hurry,  and  forgot 
the  noise  of  the  traffic.  And  always,  when- 
ever he  heard  men  speak  of  Time,  he 
grudged  to  Time  most  this  song.  Once 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

afterwards  he  went  to  that  Northern  moor 
again  and  found  the  tiny  valley,  but  there 
was  no  old  woman  in  the  garden,  and  no  one 
was  singing  a  song.  And  either  regret  for 
the  song  that  the  old  woman  had  sung,  on 
a  summer  evening  twenty  years  away  and 
daily  receding,  troubled  his  mind,  or  else  the 
wearisome  work  that  he  did  in  London,  for 
he  worked  for  a  great  firm  that  was  per- 
fectly useless;  and  he  grew  old  early,  as  men 
do  in  cities.  And  at  last,  when  melancholy 
brought  only  regret  and  the  uselessness  of 
his  work  gained  ground  with  age,  he  decided 
to  consult  a  magician.  So  to  a  magician  he 
went  and  told  him  his  troubles,  and  partic- 
ularly he  told  him  how  he  had  heard  the 
song.  "And  now,"  he  said,  "it  is  nowhere 
in  the  world." 

"Of  course  it  is  not  in  the  world,"  the 
magician  said,  "but  over  the  Edge  of  the 
World  you  may  easily  find  it."  And  he 
told  the  man  that  he  was  suffering  from  flux 
of  time  and  recommended  a  day  at  the  Edge 
of  the  World.  Jones  asked  what  part  of 
the  Edge  of  the  World  he  should  go  to,  and 
the  magician  had  heard  Tong  Tong  Tarrup 
well  spoken  of;  so  he  paid  him,  as  is  usual, 

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in  opals,  and  started  at  once  on  the  journey. 
The  ways  to  that  town  are  winding;  he  took 
the  ticket  at  Victoria  Station  that  they  only 
give  if  they  know  you:  he  went  past  Bleth: 
he  went  along  the  Hills  of  Neol-Hungar  and 
came  to  the  Gap  of  Poy.    All  these  are  in 
that  part  of  the  world  that  pertains  to  the 
fields  we  know;  but  beyond  the  Gap  of  Poy 
on  those  ordinary  plains,  that  so  closely 
resemble  Sussex,  one  first  meets  the  unlikely. 
A  line  of  common  grey  hills,  the  Hills  of 
Sneg,  may  be  seen  at  the  edge  of  the  plain 
from  the  Gap  of  Poy;  it  is  there  that  the 
incredible  begins,  infrequently  at  first,  but 
happening  more  and  more  as  you  go  up  the 
hills.     For  instance,  descending  once  into 
Poy  Plains,  the  first  thing  that  I  saw  was  an 
ordinary  shepherd  watching  a  flock  of  ordi- 
nary sheep.     I  looked   at   them  for  some 
time  and  nothing  happened,  when,  without 
a  word,  one  of  the  sheep  walked  up  to  the 
shepherd  and  borrowed  his  pipe  and  smoked 
it  —  an  incident  that  struck  me  as  unlikely; 
but  in  the  Hills  of  Sneg  I  met  an  honest 
politician.     Over  these  plains  went  Jones 
and  over  the  Hills  of  Sneg,  meeting  at  first 
unlikely  things,  and  then  incredible  things, 

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till  he  came  to  the  long  slope  beyond  the 
hills  that  leads  up  to  the  Edge  of  the  World, 
and  where,  as  all  guide-books  tell,  anything 
may  happen.  You  might  at  the  foot  of  this 
slope  see  here  and  there  things  that  could 
conceivably  occur  in  the  fields  we  know; 
but  soon  these  disappeared,  and  the  trav- 
eller saw  nothing  but  fabulous  beasts, 
browsing  on  flowers  as  astounding  as  them- 
selves, and  rocks  so  distorted  that  their 
shapes  had  clearly  a  meaning,  being  too 
startling  to  be  accidental.  Even  the  trees 
were  shockingly  unfamiliar,  they  had  so 
much  to  say,  and  they  leant  over  to  one  an- 
other whenever  they  spoke  and  struck  gro- 
tesque attitudes  and  leered.  Jones  saw 
two  fir-trees  fighting.  The  effect  of  these 
scenes  on  his  nerves  was  very  severe;  still 
he  climbed  on,  and  was  much  cheered  at  last 
by  the  sight  of  a  primrose,  the  only  familiar 
thing  he  had  seen  for  hours,  but  it  whistled 
and  skipped  away.  He  saw  the  unicorns  in 
their  secret  valley.  Then  night  in  a  sin- 
ister way  slipped  over  the  sky,  and  there 
shone  not  only  the  stars,  but  lesser  and 
greater  moons,  and  he  heard  dragons  rat- 
tling in  the  dark. 


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With  dawn  there  appeared  above  him  among 
its  amazing  crags  the  town  of  Tong  Tong 
Tarrup,  with  the  light  on  its  frozen  stairs, 
a  tiny  cluster  of  houses  far  up  in  the  sky. 
He  was  on  the  steep  mountain  now:  great 
mists  were  leaving  it  slowly,  and  revealing, 
as  they  trailed  away,  more  and  more  aston- 
ishing things.  Before  the  mist  had  all  gone 
he  heard  quite  near  him,  on  what  he  had 
thought  was  bare  mountain,  the  sound  of  a 
heavy  galloping  on  turf.  He  had  come  to 
the  plateau  of  the  centaurs.  And  all  at  once 
he  saw  them  in  the  mist:  there  they  were, 
the  children  of  fable,  five  enormous  centaurs. 
Had  he  paused  on  account  of  any  astonish- 
ment he  had  not  come  so  far:  he  strode  on 
over  the  plateau,  and  came  quite  near  to  the 
centaurs.  It  is  never  the  centaurs'  wont  to 
notice  men;  they  pawed  the  ground  and 
shouted  to  one  another  in  Greek,  but  they 
said  no  word  to  him.  Nevertheless  they 
turned  and  stared  at  him  when  he  left  them, 
and  when  he  had  crossed  the  plateau  and 
still  went  on,  all  five  of  them  cantered  after 
to  the  edge  of  their  green  land;  for  above 
the  high  green  plateau  of  the  centaurs  is 
nothing  but  naked  mountain,  and  the  last 

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green  thing  that  is  seen  by  the  mountaineer 
as  he  travels  to  Tong  Tong  Tarrup  is  the 
grass  that  the  centaurs  trample.  He  came 
into  the  snow  fields  that  the  mountain 
wears  like  a  cape,  its  head  being  bare  above 
it,  and  still  climbed  on.  The  centaurs 
watched  him  with  increasing  wonder. 

Not  even  fabulous  beasts  were  near  him 
now,  nor  strange  demoniac  trees  —  nothing 
but  snow  and  the  clean  bare  crag  above  it 
on  which  was  Tong  Tong  Tarrup.  All  day 
he  climbed  and  evening  found  him  above 
the  snow-line;  and  soon  he  came  to  the  stair- 
way cut  in  the  rock  and  in  sight  of  that 
grizzled  man,  the  long  porter  of  Tong  Tong 
Tarrup,  sitting  mumbling  amazing  mem- 
ories to  himself  and  expecting  in  vain  from 
the  stranger  a  gift  of  bash. 

It  seems  that  as  soon  as  the  stranger 
arrived  at  the  bastion  gateway,  tired  though 
he  was,  he  demanded  lodgings  at  once  that 
commanded  a  good  view  of  the  Edge  of  the 
World.  But  the  long  porter,  that  grizzled 
man,  disappointed  of  his  bash,  demanded 
the  stranger's  story  to  add  to  his  memories 
before  he  would  show  him  the  way.  And 
this  is  the  story,  if  the  long  porter  has  told 

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The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

me  the  truth  and  if  his  memory  is  still  what 
it  was.  And  when  the  story  was  told,  the 
grizzled  man  arose,  and,  dangling  his  musi- 
cal keys,  went  up  through  door  after  door 
and  by  many  stairs  and  led  the  stranger  to 
the  top-most  house,  the  highest  roof  in  the 
world,  and  in  its  parlour  showed  him  the 
parlour  window.  There  the  tired  stranger 
sat  down  in  a  chair  and  gazed  out  of  the 
window  sheer  over  the  Edge  of  the  World. 
The  window  was  shut,  and  in  its  glittering 
panes  the  twilight  of  World's  Edge  blazed 
and  danced,  partly  like  glow-worms'  lamps 
and  partly  like  the  sea;  it  went  by  rippling, 
full  of  wonderful  moons.  But  the  traveller 
did  not  look  at  the  wonderful  moons.  For 
from  the  abyss  there  grew  with  their  roots 
in  far  constellations  a  row  of  hollyhocks, 
and  amongst  them  a  small  green  garden 
quivered  and  trembled  as  scenes  tremble  in 
water;  higher  up,  ling  in  bloom  was  floating 
upon  the  twilight,  more  and  more  floated 
up  till  all  the  twilight  was  purple;  the  little 
green  garden  low  down  was  hung  in  the 
midst  of  it.  And  the  garden  down  below, 
and  the  ling  all  round  it,  seemed  all  to  be 
trembling  and  drifting  on  a  song.  For  the 

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twilight  was  full  of  a  song  that  sang  and  rang 
along  the  edges  of  the  World,  and  the  green 
garden  and  the  ling  seemed  to  flicker  and 
ripple  with  it  as  the  song  rose  and  fell,  and 
an  old  woman  was  singing  it  down  in  the 
garden.  A  bumble-bee  sailed  across  from 
over  the  Edge  of  the  World.  And  the  song 
that  was  lapping  there  against  the  coasts 
of  the  World,  and  to  which  the  stars  were 
dancing,  was  the  same  that  he  had  heard 
the  old  woman  sing  long  since  down  in  the 
valley  in  the  midst  of  the  Northern  moor. 

But  that  grizzled  man,  the  long  porter, 
would  not  let  the  stranger  stay,  because  he 
brought  him  no  bash,  and  impatiently  he 
shouldered  him  away,  himself  not  troubling 
to  glance  through  the  World's  outermost 
window,  for  the  lands  that  Time  afflicts  and 
the  spaces  that  Time  knows  not  are  all  one 
to  that  grizzled  man,  and  the  bash  that  he 
eats  more  profoundly  astounds  his  mind 
than  anything  man  can  show  him  either  in 
the  World  we  know  or  over  the  Edge.  And, 
bitterly  protesting,  the  traveller  went  back 
and  down  again  to  the  World. 


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Accustomed  as  I  am  to  the  incredible 
from  knowing  the  Edge  of  the  World,  the 
story  presents  difficulties  to  me.  Yet  it 
may  be  that  the  devastation  wrought  by 
Time  is  merely  local,  and  that  outside  the 
scope  of  his  destruction  old  songs  are  still 
being  sung  by  those  that  we  deem  dead.  I 
try  to  hope  so.  And  yet  the  more  I  investi- 
gate the  story  that  the  long  porter  told  me 
in  the  town  of  Tong  Tong  Tarrup  the  more 
plausible  the  alternative  theory  appears  — 
that  that  grizzled  man  is  a  liar. 


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The  Loot  of  Loma 


oming  back  laden  with  the 
loot  of  Loma,  the  four  tall 
men  looked  earnestly  to  the 
right;  to  the  left  they  durst 
not,  for  the  precipice  there 
that  had  been  with  them  so 
long  went  sickly  down  on  to  a  bank  of 
clouds,  and  how  much  further  below  that 
only  their  fears  could  say. 

Loma  lay  smoking,  a  city  of  ruin,  behind 
them,  all  its  defenders  dead;  there  was  no 
one  left  to  pursue  them,  and  yet  their 
Indian  instincts  told  them  that  all  was 
scarcely  well.  They  had  gone  three  days 
along  that  narrow  ledge:  mountain  quite 
smooth,  incredible,  above  them,  and  preci- 
pice as  smooth  and  as  far  below.  It  was 
chilly  there  in  the  mountains;  at  night  a 
stream  or  a  wind  in  the  gloom  of  the  chasm 

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below  them  went  like  a  whisper;  the  stillness 
of  all  things  else  began  to  wear  the  nerve  — 
an  enemy's  howl  would  have  braced  them; 
they  began  to  wish  their  perilous  path  were 
wider,  they  began  to  wish  that  they  had  not 
sacked  Loma. 

Had  that  path  been  any  wider  the  sacking 
of  Loma  must  indeed  have  been  harder  for 
them,  for  the  citizens  must  have  fortified 
the  city  but  that  the  awful  narrowness  of 
that  ten-league  pass  of  the  hills  had  made 
their  crag-surrounded  city  secure.  And  at 
last  an  Indian  had  said,  "Come,  let  us  sack 
it."  Grimly  they  laughed  in  the  wigwams. 
Only  the  eagles,  they  said,  had  ever  seen  it, 
its  hoard  of  emeralds  and  its  golden  gods; 
and  one  had  said  he  would  reach  it,  and  they 
answered,  "Only  the  eagles." 

It  was  Laughing  Face  who  said  it,  and 
who  gathered  thirty  braves  and  led  them 
into  Loma  with  their  tomahawks  and  their 
bows;  there  were  only  four  left  now,  but 
they  had  the  loot  of  Loma  on  a  mule.  They 
had  four  golden  gods,  a  hundred  emeralds, 
fifty-two  rubies,  a  large  silver  gong,  two 
sticks  of  malachite  with  amethyst  handles 
for  holding  incense  at  religious  feasts,  four 

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beakers  one  foot  high,  each  carved  from  a 
rose-quartz  crystal;  a  little  coffer  carved 
out  of  two  diamonds,  and  (had  they  but 
known  it)  the  written  curse  of  a  priest.  It 
was  written  on  parchment  in  an  unknown 
tongue,  and  had  been  slipped  in  with  the 
loot  by  a  dying  hand. 

From  either  end  of  that  narrow,  terrible 
ledge  the  third  night  was  closing  in;  it  was 
dropping  down  on  them  from  the  heights  of 
the  mountain  and  slipping  up  to  them  out  of 
the  abyss,  the  third  night  since  Loma  blazed 
and  they  had  left  it.  Three  more  days  of 
tramping  should  bring  them  in  triumph 
home,  and  yet  their  instincts  said  that  all 
was  scarcely  well.  We  who  sit  at  home  and 
draw  the  blinds  and  shut  the  shutters  as 
soon  as  night  appears,  who  gather  round  the 
fire  when  the  wind  is  wild,  who  pray  at 
regular  seasons  and  in  familiar  shrines, 
know  little  of  the  demoniac  look  of  night 
when  it  is  filled  with  curses  of  false,  infuriated 
gods.  Such  a  night  was  this.  Though  in 
the  heights  the  fleecy  clouds  were  idle,  yet 
the  wind  was  stirring  mournfully  in  the 
abyss  and  moaning  as  it  stirred,  unhappily 
at  first  and  full  of  sorrow;  but  as  day  turned 

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away  from  that  awful  path  a  very  definite 
menace  entered  its  voice  which  fast  grew 
louder  and  louder,  and  night  came  on  with 
a  long  howl.  Shadows  repeatedly  passed 
over  the  stars,  and  then  a  mist  fell  swiftly, 
as  though  there  were  something  suddenly 
to  be  done  and  utterly  to  be  hidden,  as  in 
very  truth  there  was. 

And  in  the  chill  of  that  mist  the  four  tall 
men  prayed  to  their  totems,  the  whimsical 
wooden  figures  that  stood  so  far  away, 
watching  the  pleasant  wigwams;  the  fire- 
light even  now  would  be  dancing  over  their 
faces,  while  there  would  come  to  their  ears 
delectable  tales  of  war.  They  halted  upon 
the  pass  and  prayed,  and  waited  for  any  sign. 
For  a  man's  totem  may  be  in  the  likeness 
perhaps  of  an  otter,  and  a  man  may  pray, 
and  if  his  totem  be  placable  and  watching 
over  his  man  a  noise  may  be  heard  at  once 
like  the  noise  that  the  otter  makes,  though 
it  be  but  a  stone  that  falls  on  another  stone; 
and  the  noise  is  a  sign.  The  four  men's 
totems  that  stood  so  far  away  were  in  the 
likeness  of  the  coney,  the  bear,  the  heron, 
and  the  lizard.  They  waited,  and  no  sign 
came.  With  all  the  noises  of  the  wind  in 

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the  abyss,  no  noise  was  like  the  thump  that 
the  coney  makes,  nor  the  bear's  growl,  nor 
the  heron's  screech,  nor  the  rustle  of  the 
lizard  in  the  reeds. 

It  seemed  that  the  wind  was  saying  some- 
thing over  and  over  again,  and  that  that 
thing  was  evil.  They  prayed  again  to  their 
totems,  and  no  sign  came.  And  then  they 
knew  that  there  was  some  power  that  night 
that  was  prevailing  against  the  pleasant 
carvings  on  painted  poles  of  wood  with  the 
firelight  on  their  faces  so  far  away.  Now 
it  was  clear  that  the  wind  was  saying  some- 
thing, some  very,  very  dreadful  thing  in  a 
tongue  that  they  did  not  know.  They 
listened,  but  they  could  not  tell  what  it  said. 
Nobody  could  have  said  from  seeing  their 
faces  how  much  the  four  tall  men  desired 
the  wigwams  again,  desired  the  camp-fire 
and  the  tales  of  war  and  the  benignant 
totems  that  listened  and  smiled  in  the  dusk: 
Nobody  could  have  seen  how  well  they 
knew  that  this  was  no  common  night  or 
wholesome  mist. 

When  at  last  no  answer  came  nor  any 
sign  from  their  totems,  they  pulled  out  of 
the  bag  those  golden  gods  that  Loma  gave 

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not  up  except  in  flames  and  when  all  her 
men  were  dead.     They  had  large  ruby  eyes 
and  emerald  tongues.     They  set  them  down 
upon  that  mountain  pass,  the  cross-legged 
idols  with  their  emerald  tongues;  and  having 
placed  between  them  a  few  decent  yards,  as 
it  seemed  meet  there  should  be  between 
gods  and  men,  they  bowed  them  down  and 
prayed  in  their  desperate  straits  in  that 
dank,  ominous  night  to  the  gods  they  had 
wronged,  for  it  seemed  that  there  was  a 
vengeance  upon  the  hills  and  that  they 
would  scarce  escape,  as  the  wind  knew  well. 
And  the  gods  laughed,  all  four,  and  wagged 
their   emerald   tongues;    the    Indians   saw 
them,   though   the   night   had   fallen   and 
though  the  mist  was  low.     The  four  tall 
men  leaped  up  at  once  from  their  knees  and 
would  have  left  the  gods  upon  the  pass  but 
that  they  feared  some  hunter  of  their  tribe 
might  one  day  find  them  and  say  of  Laugh- 
ing Face,    "He  fled   and   left  behind   his 
golden  gods,"  and  sell  the  gold  and  come 
with  his  wealth  to  the  wigwams  and  be 
greater  than  Laughing  Face  and  his  three 
men.     And  then  they  would  have  cast  the 
gods  away,  down  the  abyss,  with  their  eyes 

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and  their  emerald  tongues,  but  they  knew 
that  enough  already  they  had  wronged 
Loma's  gods,  and  feared  that  vengeance 
enough  was  waiting  them  on  the  hills.  So 
they  packed  them  back  in  the  bag  on  the 
frightened  mule,  the  bag  that  held  the  curse 
they  knew  nothing  of,  and  so  pushed  on 
into  the  menacing  night.  Till  midnight 
they  plodded  on  and  would  not  sleep; 
grimmer  and  grimmer  grew  the  look  of  the 
night,  and  the  wind  more  full  of  meaning, 
and  the  mule  knew  and  trembled,  and  it 
seemed  that  the  wind  knew,  too,  as  did  the 
instincts  of  those  four  tall  men,  though 
they  could  not  reason  it  out,  try  how  they 
would. 

And  though  the  squaws  waited  long 
where  the  pass  winds  out  of  the  mountains, 
near  where  the  wigwams  are  upon  the 
plains,  the  wigwams  and  the  totems  and  the 
fire,  and  though  they  watched  by  day,  and 
for  many  nights  uttered  familiar  calls,  still 
did  they  never  see  those  four  tall  men 
emerge  out  of  the  mountains  any  more,  even 
though  they  prayed  to  their  totems  upon 
their  painted  poles;  but  the  curse  in  the 


78 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

mystical  writing  that  they  had  unknown  in 
their  bag  worked  there  on  that  lonely  pass 
six  leagues  from  the  ruins  of  Loma,  and 
nobody  can  tell  us  what  it  was.  f 


79 


The  Secret  of  the  Sea 


!n  an  ill-lit  ancient  tavern  that 
II  know,  are  many  tales  of  the 
jsea;  but  not  without  the  wine 
)of  Gorgondy,  that  I  had  of  a 
(private  bargain  from  the 
'gnomes,  was  the  tale  laid  bare 
for  which  I  had  waited  of  an  evening  for  the 
greater  part  of  a  year. 

I  knew  my  man  and  listened  to  his  stories, 
sitting  amid  the  bluster  of  his  oaths;  I  plied 
him  with  rum  and  whiskey  and  mixed  drinks, 
but  there  never  came  the  tale  for  which  I 
sought,  and  as  a  last  resort  I  went  to  the 
Huthneth  Mountains  and  bargained  there 
all  night  with  the  chiefs  of  the  gnomes. 

When  I  came  to  the  ancient  tavern  and 
entered  the  low-roofed  room,  bringing  the 
hoard  of  the  gnomes  in  a  bottle  of  hammered 
iron,  my  man  had  not  yet  arrived.  The 

80 


The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

sailors  laughed  at  my  old  iron  bottle,  but  I 
sat  down  and  waited;  had  I  opened  it  then 
they  would  have  wept  and  sung.  I  was 
well  content  to  wait,  for  I  knew  my  man  had 
the  story,  and  it  was  such  a  one  as  had  pro- 
foundly stirred  the  incredulity  of  the  faith- 
less. 

He  entered  and  greeted  me,  and  sat  down 
and  called  for  brandy.  He  was  a  hard  man 
to  turn  from  his  purpose,  arid,  uncorking 
my  iron  bottle,  I  sought  to  dissuade  him 
from  brandy  for  fear  that  when  the  brandy, 
bit  his  throat  he  should  refuse  to  leave  it 
for  any  other  wine.  He  lifted  his  head  and 
said  deep  and  dreadful  things  of  any  man 
that  should  dare  to  speak  against  brandy, 

I  swore  that  I  said  nothing  against  brandy 
but  added  that  it  was  often  given  to  chil- 
dren, while  Gorgondy  was  only  drunk  by 
men  of  such  depravity  that  they  had  aban- 
doned sin  because  all  the  usual  vices  had 
come  to  seem  genteel.  When  he  asked  if 
Gorgondy  was  a  bad  wine  to  drink  I  said 
that  it  was  so  bad  that  if  a  man  sipped  it 
that  was  the  one  touch  that  made  damna- 
tion certain.  Then  he  asked  me  what  I 
had  in  the  iron  bottle,  and  I  said  it  was 

81 


The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

Gorgondy;  and  then  he  shouted  for  the 
largest  tumbler  in  that  ill-lit  ancient  tavern, 
and  stood  up  and  shook  his  fist  at  me  when 
it  came,  and  swore,  and  told  me  to  fill  it 
with  the  wine  that  I  got  on  that  bitter  night 
from  the  treasure  house  of  the  gnomes. 

As  he  drank  it  he  told  me  that  he  had 
met  men  who  had  spoken  against  wine,  and 
that  they  had  mentioned  Heaven;  and  there- 
fore he  would  not  go  there  —  no,  not  he; 
and  that  once  he  had  sent  one  of  them  to 
Hell,  but  when  he  got  there  he  would  turn 
him  out,  and  he  had  no  use  for  milksops. 

Over  the  second  tumbler  he  was  thought- 
ful, but  still  he  said  no  word  of  the  tale  he 
knew,  until  I  feared  that  it  would  never  be 
heard.  But  when  the  third  glass  of  that 
terrific  wine  had  burned  its  way  down  his 
gullet,  and  vindicated  the  wickedness  of 
the  gnomes,  his  reticence  withered  like  a 
leaf  in  the  fire,  and  he  bellowed  out  the 
secret. 

I  had  long  known  that  there  is  in  ships  a 
will  or  way  of  their  own,  and  had  even 
suspected  that  when  sailors  die  or  abandon 
their  ships  at  sea,  a  derelict,  being  left  to 
her  own  devices,  may  seek  her  own  ends; 

82 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

but  I  had  never  dreamed  by  night,  or  fan- 
cied during  the  day,  that  the  ships  had  a 
god  that  they  worshipped,  or  that  they 
secretly  slipped  away  to  a  temple  in  the  sea. 

Over  the  fourth  glass  of  the  wine  that  the 
gnomes  so  sinfully  brew  but  have  kept  so 
wisely  from  man,  until  the  bargain  that  I 
had  with  their  elders  all  through  that 
autumn  night,  the  sailor  told  me  the  story. 
I  do  not  tell  it  as  he  told  it  to  me  because  of 
the  oaths  that  were  in  it;  nor  is  it  from  del- 
icacy that  I  refrain  from  writing  these  oaths 
verbatim,  but  merely  because  the  horror 
they  caused  in  me  at  the  time  troubles  me 
still  whenever  I  put  them  on  paper,  and  I 
continue  to  shudder  until  I  have  blotted 
them  out.  Therefore,  I  tell  the  story  in 
my  own  words,  which,  if  they  possess  a 
certain  decency  that  was  not  in  the  mouth' 
of  that  sailor,  unfortunately  do  not  smack, 
as  his  did,  of  rum  and  blood  and  the  sea. 

You  would  take  a  ship  to  be  a  dead  thing 
like  a  table,  as  dead  as  bits  of  iron  and  can- 
vas and  wood.  That  is  because  you  always 
live  on  shore,  and  have  never  seen  the  sea, 
and  drink  milk.  Milk  is  a  more  accursed 
drink  than  water. 

83 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

What  with  the  captain  and  what  with  the 
man  at  the  wheel,  and  what  with  the  crew, 
a  ship  has  no  fair  chance  of  showing  a  will 
of  her  own. 

There  is  only  one  moment  in  the  history 
of  ships,  that  carry  crews  on  board,  when 
they  act  by  their  own  free  will.  This 
moment  comes  when  all  the  crew  are  drunk. 
As  the  last  man  falls  drunk  on  to  the  deck, 
the  ship  is  free  of  man,  and  immediately 
slips  away.  She  slips  away  at  once  on 
a  new  course  and  is  never  one  yard  out  in 
a  hundred  miles. 

It  was  like  this  one  night  with  the  Sea- 
Fancy.  Bill  Smiles  was  there  himself,  and 
can  vouch  for  it.  Bill  Smiles  has  never 
told  this  tale  before  for  fear  that  anyone 
should  call  him  a  liar.  Nobody  dislikes 
being  hung  as  much  as  Bill  Smiles  would, 
but  he  won't  be  called  a  liar.  I  tell  the  tale 
as  I  heard  it,  relevancies  and  irrelevancies, 
though  in'  my  more  decent  words;  and  as  I 
made  no  doubts  of  the  truth  of  it  then,  I 
hardly  like  to  now;  others  can  please  them- 
selves. 

It  is  not  often  that  the  whole  of  a  crew  is 
drunk.  The  crew  of  the  Sea-Fancy  was  no 

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The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

drunkener  than  others.  It  happened  like  this. 

The  captain  was  always  drunk.  One  day 
a  fancy  he  had  that  some  spiders  were 
plotting  against  him,  or  a  sudden  bleeding 
he  had  from  both  his  ears,  made  him  think 
that  drinking  might  be  bad  for  his  health. 
Next  day  he  signed  the  pledge.  He  was 
sober  all  that  morning  and  all  the  afternoon, 
but  at  evening  he  saw  a  sailor  drinking  a 
a  glass  of  beer,  and  a  fit  of  madness  seized 
him,  and  he  said  things  that  seemed  bad  to 
Bill  Smiles.  And  next  morning  he  made  all 
of  them  take  the  pledge. 

For  two  days  nobody  had  a  drop  to 
drink,  unless  you  count  water,  and  on  the 
third  morning  the  captain  was  quite  drunk 
It  stood  to  reason  they  all  had  a  glass  or  two 
then,  except  the  man  at  the  wheel;  and  to- 
wards evening  the  man  at  the  wheel  could 
bear  it  no  longer,  and  seems  to  have  had  his 
glass  like  all  the  rest,  for  the  ship's  course 
wobbled  a  bit  and  made  a  circle  or  two. 
Then  all  of  a  sudden  she  went  off  south  by 
east  under  full  canvas  till  midnight,  and 
never  altered  her  course.  And  at  midnight 
she  came  to  the  wide  wet  courts  of  the 
Temple  in  the  Sea. 

85 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

People  who  think  that  Mr.  Smiles  is 
drunk  often  make  a  great  mistake.  And 
people  are  not  the  only  ones  that  have  made 
that  mistake.  Once  a  ship  made  it,  and  a 
lot  of  ships.  It's  a  mistake  to  think  that 
old  Bill  Smiles  is  drunk  just  because  he 
can't  move. 

Midnight  and  moonlight  and  the  Temple 
in  the  Sea  Bill  Smiles  clearly  remembers, 
and  all  the  derelicts  in  the  world  were  there, 
the  old  abandoned  ships.  The  figureheads 
were  nodding  to  themselves  and  blinking 
at  the  image.  The  image  was  a  woman  of 
white  marble  on  a  pedestal  in  the  outer 
court  of  the  Temple  of  the  Sea:  she  was 
clearly  the  love  of  all  the  man-deserted 
ships,  or  the  goddess  to  whom  they  prayed 
their  heathen  prayers.  And  as  Bill  Smiles 
was  watching  them,  the  lips  of  the  figure- 
heads moved;  they  all  began  to  pray.  But 
all  at  once  their  lips  were  closed  with  a  snap 
when  they  saw  that  there  were  men  on  the 
Sea-Fancy.  They  all  came  crowding  up 
and  nodded  and  nodded  and  nodded  to  see 
if  all  were  drunk,  and  that's  when  they 
made  their  mistake  about  old  Bill  Smiles, 
although  he  couldn't  move.  They  would 

86 


MIDNIGHT    AND    MOONLIGHT    AND    THE    TEMPLE    IN   THE    SEA 


The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

have  given  up  the  treasuries  of  the  gulfs 
sooner  than  let  men  hear  the  prayers  they 
said  or  guess  their  love  for  the  goddess.  It 
is  the  intimate  secret  of  the  sea. 

The  sailor  paused.  And,  in  my  eager- 
ness to  hear  what  lyrical  or  blasphemous 
thing  those  figureheads  prayed  by  moon- 
light at  midnight  in  the  sea  to  the  woman 
of  marble  who  was  a  goddess  to  ships,  I 
pressed  on  the  sailor  more  of  my  Gorgondy 
wine  that  the  gnomes  so  wickedly  brew. 

I  should  never  have  done  it;  but  there  he 
was  sitting  silent  while  the  secret  was  almost 
mine.  He  took  it  moodily  and  drank  a 
glass;  and  with  the  other  glasses  that  he  had 
had  he  fell  a  prey  to  the  villainy  of  the 
gnomes  who  brew  this  unbridled  wine  to  no 
good  end.  His  body  leaned  forward  slowly, 
then  fell  on  to  the  table,  his  face  being  side- 
ways and  full  of  a  wicked  smile,  and,  saying 
very  clearly  the  one  word,  "Hell,"  he  be- 
came silent  for  ever  with  the  secret  he  had 
from  the  sea. 


87 


How  AH  Came 
to  the  Black  Country 


looshan  the  barber  went  to 
3hep  the  maker  of  teeth  to 
liscuss  the  state  of  England. 
They  agreed  that  it  was  time 
send  for  Ali. 

So  Shooshan  stepped  late 
that  night  from  the  little  shop  near  Fleet 
Street  and  made  his  way  back  again  to  his 
house  in  the  ends  of  London  and  sent  at 
once  the  message  that  brought  Ali. 

And  Ali  came,  mostly  on  foot,  from  the 
country  of  Persia,  and  it  took  him  a  year 
to  come;  but  when  he  came  he  was  welcome. 
And  Shep  told  Ali  what  was  the  matter 
with  England  and  Shooshan  swore  that  it 
was  so,  and  Ali  looking  out  of  the  window 
of  the  little  shop  near  Fleet  Street  beheld 
the  ways  of  London  and  audibly  blessed 
King  Solomon  and  his  seal, 

88 


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When  Shep  and  Shooshan  heard  the 
names  of  King  Solomon  and  his  seal  both 
asked,  as  they  had  scarcely  dared  before, 
if  Ali  had  it.  Ali  patted  a  little  bundle  of 
silks  that  he  drew  from  his  inner  raiment. 
It  was  there. 

Now  concerning  the  movements  and 
courses  of  the  stars  and  the  influence  on 
them  of  spirits  of  Earth  and  devils  this  age 
has  been  rightly  named  by  some  The  Second 
Age  of  Ignorance.  But  Ali  knew.  And 
by  watching  nightly,  for  seven  nights  in 
Bagdad,  the  way  of  certain  stars  he  had 
found  out  the  dwelling  place  of  Him  they 
Needed. 

Guided  by  Ali  all  three  set  forth  for  the 
Midlands.  And  by  the  reverence  that  was 
manifest  in  the  faces  of  Shep  and  Shooshan 
towards  the  person  of  Ali,  some  knew  what 
Ali  carried,  while  others  said  that  it  was  the 
tablets  of  the  Law,  others  the  name  of  God, 
and  others  that  he  must  have  a  lot  of  money 
about  him.  So  they  passed  Slod  and 
Apton. 

And  at  last  they  came  to  the  town  for 
which  Ali  sought,  that  spot  over  which  he 
had  seen  the  shy  stars  wheel  and  swerve 

89 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

away  from  their  orbits,  being  troubled. 
Verily  when  they  came  there  were  no  stars, 
though  it  was  midnight.  And  Ali  said  that 
it  was  the  appointed  place.  In  harems  in 
Persia  in  the  evening  when  the  tales  go 
round  it  is  still  told  how  Ali  and  Shep  and 
Shooshan  came  to  the  Black  country. 

When  it  was  dawn  they  looked  upon  the 
country  and  saw  how  it  was  without  doubt 
the  appointed  place,  even  as  Ali  had  said, 
for  the  earth  had  been  taken  out  of  pits  and 
burned  and  left  lying  in  heaps,  and  there 
were  many  factories,  and  they  stood  over 
the  town  and  as  it  were  rejoiced.  And 
with  one  voice  Shep  and  Shooshan  gave 
praise  to  Ali. 

And  Ali  said  that  the  great  ones  of  the 
place  must  needs  be  gathered  together,  and 
to  this  end  Shep  and  Shooshan  went  into 
the  town  and  there  spoke  craftily.  For 
they  said  that  Ali  had  of  his  wisdom  con- 
trived as  it  were  a  patent  and  a  novelty 
which  should  greatly  benefit  England.  And 
when  they  heard  how  he  sought  nothing  for 
his  novelty  save  only  to  benefit  mankind 
they  consented  to  speak  with  Ali  and  see  his 
novelty.  And  they  came  forth  and  met  Ali. 

90 


GUIDED  BY  ALI,  ALL  THREE  SET  FORTH  FOR  THE  MIDLANDS 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

And  Ali  spake  and  said  unto  them:"O 
lords  of  this  place;  in  the  book  that  all  men 
know  it  is  written  how  that  a  fisherman 
casting  his  net  into  the  sea  drew  up  a  bottle 
of  brass,  and  when  he  took  the  stopper  from 
the  bottle  a  dreadful  genie  of  horrible  aspect 
rose  from  the  bottle,  as  it  were  like  a  smoke, 
even  to  darkening  the  sky,  whereat  the 
fisherman  ..."  And  the  great  ones 
of  that  place  said:  "We  have  heard  the 
story."  And  Ali  said:  "What  became  of 
that  genie  after  he  was  safely  thrown  back 
into  the  sea  is  not  properly  spoken  of  by  any 
save  those  that  pursue  the  study  of  demons 
and  not  with  certainty  by  any  man,  but 
that  the  stopper  that  bore  the  ineffable  seal 
and  bears  it  to  this  day  became  separate 
from  the  bottle  is  among  those  things  that 
man  may  know.'/  And  when  there  was 
doubt  among  the  great  ones  Ali  drew  forth 
his  bundle  and  one  by  one  removed  those 
many  silks  till  the  seal  stood  revealed;  and 
some  of  them  knew  it  for  the  seal  and  others 
knew  it  not. 

And  they  looked  curiously  at  it  and  lis- 
tened to  Ali,  and  Ali  said : 

"Having  heard  how  evil  is  the  case  of 

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The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

England,  how  a  smoke  has  darkened  the 
country,  and  in  places  (as  men  say)  the 
grass  is  black,  and  how  even  yet  your  fac- 
tories multiply,  and  haste  and  noise  have 
become  such  that  men  have  no  time  for 
song,  I  have  therefore  come  at  the  bidding 
of  my  good  friend  Shooshan,  barber  of 
London,  and  of  Shep,  a  maker  of  teeth,  to 
make  things  well  with  you." 

And  they  said:  "But  where  is  your  patent 
and  your  novelty?" 

And  Ali  said:  "Have  I  not  here  the 
stopper  and  on  it,  as  good  men  know,  the 
ineffable  seal?  Now  I  have  learned  in 
Persia  how  that  your  trains  that  make  the 
haste,  and  hurry  men  to  and  fro,  and  your 
factories  and  the  digging  of  your  pits  and 
all  the  things  that  are  evil  are  every  one  of 
them  caused  and  brought  about  by  steam." 

"Is  it  not  so?"  said  Shooshan. 

"It  is  even  so,"  said  Shep. 

"Now  it  is  clear,"  said  Ali,  "that  the  chief 
devil  that  vexes  England  and  has  done  all 
this  harm,  who  herds  men  into  cities  and 
will  not  let  them  rest,  is  even  the  devil 
Steam." 

Then  the  great  ones  would  have  rebuked 

92 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

him  but  one  said:  "No,  let  us  hear  him, 
perhaps  his  patent  may  improve  on  steam." 

And  to  them  hearkening  Ali  went  on 
thus:  "0  Lords  of  this  place,  let  there  be 
made  a  bottle  of  strong  steel,  for  I  have  no 
bottle  with  my  stopper,  and  this  being  done 
let  all  the  factories,  trains,  digging  of  pits, 
and  all  evil  things  soever  that  may  be  done 
by  steam  be  stopped  for  seven  days,  and  the 
men  that  tend  them  shall  go  free,  but  the 
steel  bottle  for  my  stopper  I  will  leave  open 
in  a  likely  place.  Now  that  chief  devil, 
Steam,  finding  no  factories  to  enter  into, 
nor  no  trains,  sirens  nor  pits  prepared  for 
him,  and  being  curious  and  accustomed  to 
steel  pots,  will  verily  enter  one  night  into 
the  bottle  that  you  shall  make  for  my  stop- 
per, and  I  shall  spring  forth  from  my  hiding 
with  my  stopper  and  fasten  him  down  with 
the  ineffable  seal  which  is  the  seal  of  King 
Solomon  and  deliver  him  up  to  you  that  you 
cast  him  into  the  sea." 

And  the  great  ones  answered  Ali  and  they 
said:  "But  what  should  we  gain  if  we  lose 
our  prosperity  and  be  no  longer  rich?  " 

And  Ali  said:  "When  we  have  cast  this 
devil  into  the  sea  there  will  come  back 

93 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

again  the  woods  and  ferns  and  all  the  beau- 
tiful things  that  the  world  hath,  the  little 
leaping  hares  shall  be  seen  at  play,  there 
shall  be  music  on  the  hills  again,  and  at  twi- 
light ease  and  quiet  and  after  the  twilight 
stars." 

And  "Verily,"  said  Shooshan,  "there 
shall  be  the  dance  again." 

"Aye,"  said  Shep,  "there  shall  be  the 
country  dance." 

But  the  great  ones  spake  and  said,  deny- 
ing Ali:  "We  will  make  no  such  bottle  for 
your  stopper  nor  stop  our  healthy  factories 
or  good  trains,  nor  cease  from  our  digging 
of  pits  nor  do  anything  that  you  desire,  for 
an  interference  with  steam  would  strike  at 
the  roots  of  that  prosperity  that  you  see  so 
plentifully  all  around  us." 

Thus  they  dismissed  Ali  there  and  then 
from  that  place  where  the  earth  was  torn 
up  and  burnt,  being  taken  out  of  pits,  and 
where  factories  blazed  all  night  with  a  de- 
moniac glare;  and  they  dismissed  with  him 
both  Shooshan,  the  barber,  and  Shep,  the 
maker  of  teeth:  so  that  a  week  later  Ali 
started  from  Calais  on  his  long  walk  back 
to  Persia. 

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The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

And  all  this  happened  thirty  years  ago, 
and  Shep  is  an  old  man  now  and  Shooshan 
older,  and  many  mouths  have  bit  with  the 
teeth  of  Shep  (for  he  has  a  knack  of  getting 
them  back  whenever  his  customers  die), 
and  they  have  written  again  to  Ali  away  in 
the  country  of  Persia  with  these  words, 
saying: 

"O  Ali.  The  devil  has  indeed  begotten 
a  devil,  even  that  spirit  Petrol.  And  the 
young  devil  waxeth,  and  increaseth  in  lusti- 
hood  and  is  ten  years  old  and  becoming  like 
to  his  father.  Come  therefore  and  help  us 
with  the  ineffable  seal.  For  there  is  none 
like  Ali." 

And  Ah'  turns  where  his  slaves  scatter 
rose-leaves,  letting  the  letter  fall,  and  deeply 
draws  from  his  hookah  a  puff  of  the  scented 
smoke,  right  down  into  his  lungs,  and  sighs 
it  forth  and  smiles,  and  lolling  round  on  to 
his  other  elbow  speaks  comfortably  and  says, 
"And  shall  a  man  go  twice  to  the  help  of  a 
dog?" 

And  with  these  words  he  thinks  no  more 
of  England  but  ponders  again  the  inscru- 
table ways  of  God. 


95 


The  Bureau 
D  'Echange 
De  Maux 

joften  think  of  the  Bureau 
[d'Echange  de  Maux  and  the 
(wondrously  evil  old  man  that 
jsate  therein.  It  stood  in  a 
Ilittle  street  that  there  is  in 
*Paris,  its  doorway  made  of 
three  brown  beams  of  wood,  the  top  one 
overlapping  the  others  like  the  Greek  letter 
pi,  all  the  rest  painted  green,  a  house  far 
lower  and  narrower  than  its  neighbours  and 
infinitely  stranger,  a  thing  to  take  one's 
fancy.  And  over  the  doorway  on  the  old 
brown  beam  in  faded  yellow  letters  this 
legend  ran,  Bureau  Universel  d'Echanges 
de  Maux. 

I  entered  at  once  and  accosted  the  listless 
man  that  lolled  on  a  stool  by  his  counter.  I 
demanded  the  wherefore  of  his  wonderful 
house,  what  evil  wares  he  exchanged,  with 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

many  other  things  that  I  wished  to  know, 
for  curiosity  led  me;  and  indeed  had  it  not 
I  had  gone  at  once  from  the  shop,  for  there 
was  so  evil  a  look  in  that  fattened  man,  in 
the  hang  of  his  fallen  cheeks  and  his  sinful 
eye,  that  you  would  have  said  he  had  had 
dealings  with  Hell  and  won  the  advantage 
by  sheer  wickedness. 

Such  a  man  was  mine  host;  but  above  all 
the  evil  of  him  lay  in  his  eyes,  which  lay  so 
still,  so  apathetic,  that  you  would  have 
sworn  that  he  was  drugged  or  dead;  like 
lizards  motionless  on  a  wall  they  lay,  then 
suddenly  they  darted,  and  all  his  cunning 
flamed  up  and  revealed  itself  in  what  one 
moment  before  seemed  no  more  than  a 
sleepy  and  ordinary  wicked  old  man.  And 
this  was  the  object  and  trade  of  that 
peculiar  shop,  the  Bureau  Universel  d'E- 
changes  de  Maux:  you  paid  twenty  francs, 
which  the  old  man  proceeded  to  take  from 
me,  for  admission  to  the  bureau  and  then 
had  the  right  to  exchange  any  evil  or  mis- 
fortune with  anyone  on  the  premises  for 
some  evil  or  misfortune  that  he  "could 
afford,"  as  the  old  man  put  it. 

There  were  four  or  five  men  in  the  dingy 

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The  Last  Boofa  °f  Wonder 

ends  of  that  low-ceilinged  room  who  gestic- 
ulated and  muttered  softly  in  twos  as  men 
who  make  a  bargain,  and  now  and  then 
more  came  in,  and  the  eyes  of  the  flabby 
owner  of  the  house  leaped  up  at  them  as 
they  entered,  seemed  to  know  their  errands 
at  once  and  each  one's  peculiar  need,  and 
fell  back  again  into  somnolence,  receiving 
his  twenty  francs  in  an  almost  lifeless  hand 
and  biting  the  coin  as  though  in  pure  ab- 
sence of  mind. 

"Some  of  my  clients,"  he  told  me.  So 
amazing  to  me  was  the  trade  of  this  extra- 
ordinary shop  that  I  engaged  the  old  man 
in  conversation,  repulsive  though  he  was, 
and  from  his  garrulity  I  gathered  these  facts. 
He  spoke  in  perfect  English  though  his 
utterance  was  somewhat  thick  and  heavy; 
no  language  seemed  to  come  amiss  to  him. 
He  had  been  in  business  a  great  many  years, 
how  many  he  would  not  say,  and  was  far 
older  than  he  looked.  All  kinds  of  people 
did  business  in  his  shop.  What  they  ex- 
changed with  each  other  he  did  not  care 
except  that  it  had  to  be  evils,  he  was  not 
empowered  to  carry  on  any  other  kind  of 
business. 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

There  was  no  evil,  he  told  me,  that  was 
not  negotiable  there;  no  evil  the  old  man 
knew  had  ever  been  taken  away  in  despair 
from  his  shop.  A  man  might  have  to  wait 
and  come  back  again  next  day,  and  next 
day  and  the  day  after,  paying  twenty  francs 
each  time,  but  the  old  man  had  the  addresses 
of  his  clients  and  shrewdly  knew  their  needs, 
and  soon  the  right  two  met  and  eagerly 
changed  their  commodities.  "Commodities" 
was  the  old  man's  terrible  word,  said  with  a 
gruesome  smack  of  his  heavy  lips,  for  he 
took  a  pride  in  his  business  and  evils  to  him 
were  goods. 

I  learned  from  him  in  ten  minutes  very 
much  of  human  nature,  more  than  I  have 
ever  learned  from  any  other  man;  I  learned 
from  him  that  a  man's  own  evil  is  to  him  the 
worst  thing  that  there  is  or  could  be,  and 
that  an  evil  so  unbalances  all  men's  minds 
that  they  always  seek  for  extremes  in  that 
small  grim  shop.  A  woman  that  had  no 
children  had  exchanged  with  an  impover- 
ished half -maddened  creature  with  twelve. 
On  one  occasion  a  man  had  exchanged  wis- 
dom for  folly. 

"Why  on  earth  did  he  do  that?"  I  said. 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

"None  of  my  business,"  the  old  man 
answered  in  his  heavy  indolent  way.  He 
merely  took  his  twenty  francs  from  each 
and  ratified  the  agreement  in  the  little  room 
at  the  back  opening  out  of  the  shop  where 
his  clients  do  business.  Apparently  the 
man  that  had  parted  with  wisdom  had  left 
the  shop  upon  the  tips  of  his  toes  with  a 
happy  though  foolish  expression  all  over  his 
face,  but  the  other  went  thoughtfully  away 
wearing  a  troubled  and  very  puzzled  look. 
Almost  always  it  seemed  they  did  business 
in  opposite  evils. 

But  the  thing  that  puzzled  me  most  in 
all  my  talks  with  that  unwieldy  man,  the 
thing  that  puzzles  me  still,  is  that  none  that 
had  once  done  business  in  that  shop  ever 
returned  again;  a  man  might  come  day  after 
day  for  many  weeks,  but  once  do  business 
and  he  never  returned;  so  much  the  old  man 
told  me,  but  when  I  asked  him  why,  he  only 
muttered  that  he  did  not  know. 

It  was  to  discover  the  wherefore  of  this 
strange  thing  and  for  no  other  reason  at  all 
that  I  determined  myself  to  do  business 
sooner  or  later  in  the  little  room  at  the  back 
of  that  mysterious  shop.  I  determined  to 
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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

exchange  some  very  trivial  evil  for  some 
evil  equally  slight,  to  seek  for  myself  an 
advantage  so  very  small  as  scarcely  to  give 
Fate  as  it  were  a  grip,  for  I  deeply  distrusted 
these  bargains,  knowing  well  that  man  has 
never  yet  benefited  by  the  marvellous  and 
that  the  more  miraculous  his  advantage 
appears  to  be  the  more  securely  and  tightly 
do  the  gods  or  the  witches  catch  him.  In 
a  few  days  more  I  was  going  back  to  Eng- 
land and  I  was  beginning  to  fear  that  I 
should  be  sea-sick :  this  fear  of  sea-sickness, 
not  the  actual  malady  but  only  the  mere 
fear  of  it,  I  decided  to  exchange  for  a  suitably 
little  evil.  I  did  not  know  with  whom  I 
should  be  dealing,  who  in  reality  was  the 
head  of  the  firm  (one  never  does  when 
shopping)  but  I  decided  that  neither  Jew 
nor  Devil  could  make  very  much  on  so  small 
a  bargain  as  that. 

I  told  the  old  man  my  project,  and  he 
scoffed  at  the  smallness  of  my  commodity 
trying  to  urge  me  to  some  darker  bargain, 
but  could  not  move  me  from  my  purpose. 
And  then  he  told  me  tales  with  a  somewhat 
boastful  air  of  the  big  business,  the  great 
bargains  that  had  passed  through  his  hands. 

101 


-*i  •".":"•  f  7f^  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

A  man  had  once  run  in  there  to  try  and 
exchange  death,  he  had  swallowed  poison 
by  accident  and  had  only  twelve  hours  to 
live.  That  sinister  old  man  had  been  able 
to  oblige  him.  A  client  was  willing  to  ex- 
change the  commodity. 

"But  what  did  he  give  in  exchange  for 
death?"  I  said. 

"Life,"  said  that  grim  old  man  with  a 
furtive  chuckle. 

"It  must  have  been  a  horrible  life,"  I 
said. 

"That  was  not  my  affair,"  the  proprietor 
said,  lazily  rattling  together  as  he  spoke  a 
little  pocketful  of  twenty-franc  pieces. 

Strange  business  I  watched  in  that  shop 
for  the  next  few  days,  the  exchange  of  odd 
commodities,  and  heard  strange  mutterings 
in  corners  amongst  couples  who  presently 
rose  and  went  to  the  back  room,  the  old  man 
following  to  ratify. 

Twice  a  day  for  a  week  I  paid  my  twenty 
francs,  watching  life  with  its  great  needs 
and  its  little  needs  morning  and  afternoon 
spread  out  before  me  in  all  its  wonderful 
variety. 

And  one  day  I  met  a  comfortable  man 

102 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

with  only  a  little  need,  he  seemed  to  have 
the  very  evil  I  wanted.  He  always  feared 
the  lift  was  going  to  break.  I  knew  too 
much  of  hydraulics  to  fear  things  as  silly  as 
that,  but  it  was  not  my  business  to  cure 
his  ridiculous  fear.  Very  few  words  were 
needed  to  convince  him  that  mine  was  the  evil 
for  him,  he  never  crossed  the  sea,  and  I  on 
the  other  hand  could  always  walk  upstairs, 
and  I  also  felt  at  the  time,  as  many  must 
feel  in  that  shop,  that  so  absurd  a  fear  could 
never  trouble  me.  And  yet  at  times  it  is 
almost  the  curse  of  my  life.  When  we  both 
had  signed  the  parchment  in  the  spidery 
back  room  and  the  old  man  had  signed  and 
ratified  (for  which  we  had  to  pay  him  fifty 
francs  each)  I  went  back  to  my  hotel,  and 
there  I  saw  the  deadly  thing  in  the  basement. 
They  asked  me  if  I  would  go  upstairs  in  the 
lift,  from  force  of  habit  I  risked  it,  and  I 
held  my  breath  all  the  way  and  clenched  my 
hands.  Nothing  will  induce  me  to  try  such 
a  journey  again.  I  would  sooner  go  up  to 
my  room  in  a  balloon.  And  why?  Because 
if  a  balloon  goes  wrong  you  have  a  chance, 
it  may  spread  out  into  a  parachute  after  it 
has  burst,  it  may  catch  in  a  tree,  a  hundred 
103 


The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

and  one  things  may  happen,  but  if  the  lift 
falls  down  its  shaft  you  are  done.  As  for 
sea-sickness  I  shall  never  be  sick  again,  I 
cannot  tell  you  why  except  that  I  know 
that  it  is  so. 

And  the  shop  in  which  I  made  this  remark- 
able, bargain  the  shop  to  which  none  return 
when  their  business  is  done :  I  set  out  for  it 
next  day.  Blindfold  I  could  have  found 
my  way  to  the  unfashionable  quarter  out 
of  which  a  mean  street  runs,  where  you  take 
the  alley  at  the  end,  whence  runs  the  cul  de 
sac  where  the  queer  shop  stood.  A  shop 
with  pillars,  fluted  and  painted  red,  stands 
on  its  near  side,  its  other  neighbour  is  a 
low-class  jeweller's  with  little  silver  brooches 
in  the  window.  In  such  incongruous  com- 
pany stood  the  shop  with  beams  with  its 
walls  painted  green. 

In  half  an  hour  I  stood  in  the  cul  de  sac 
to  which  I  had  gone  twice  a  day  for  the  last 
week,  I  found  the  shop  with  the  ugly  painted 
pillars  and  the  jeweller  that  sold  brooches, 
but  the  green  house  with  the  three  beams 
was  gone. 

Pulled  down,  you  will  say,  although  in  a 
single  night.  That  can  never  be  the  answer 

104 

. 


The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

to  the  mystery,  for  the  house  of  the  fluted 
pillars  painted  on  plaster  and  the  low-class 
jeweller's  shop  with  its  silver  brooches  (all 
of  which  I  could  identify  one  by  one)  were 
standing  side  by  side. 


A  Story  of  Land 
and  Sea 


t  is  written  in  the  first  Book 
of  Wonder  how  Captain  Shard 
of  the  bad  ship  Desperate 
Lark,  having  looted  the  sea- 
coast  city  Bombasharna,  re- 
tired from  active  life;  and 
resigning  piracy  to  younger  men,  with  the 
good  will  of  the  North  and  South  Atlantic, 
settled  down  with  a  captured  queen  on  his 
floating  island. 

Sometimes  he  sank  a  ship  for  the  sake  of 
old  times  but  he  no  longer  hovered  along  the 
trade-routes;  and  timid  merchants  watched 
for  other  men. 

It  was  not  age  that  caused  him  to  leave 
his  romantic  profession;  nor  un worthiness 
of  its  traditions,  nor  gun-shot  wound,  nor 
drink;  but  grim  necessity  and  force  majeure. 

106 


The  Last  Boo^  °f  Wonder 

Five  navies  were  after  him.  How  he  gave 
them  the  slip  one  day  in  the  Mediterranean, 
how  he  fought  with  the  Arabs,  how  a  ship's 
broadside  was  heard  in  Lat.  23  N.  Long.  4  E. 
for  the  first  time  and  the  last,  with  other 
things  unknown  to  Admiralties,  I  shall  pro- 
ceed to  tell. 

He  had  had  his  fling,  had  Shard,  captain 
of  pirates,  and  all  his  merry  men  wore 
pearls  in  their  ear-rings;  and  now  the  Eng- 
lish fleet  was  after  him  under  full  sail  along 
the  coast  of  Spain  with  a  good  North  wind 
behind  them.  They  were  not  gaining 
much  on  Shard's  rakish  craft,  the  bad  ship 
Desperate  Lark,  yet  they  were  closer  than 
was  to  his  liking,  and  they  interfered  with 
business. 

For  a  day  and  a  night  they  had  chased 
him,  when  off  Cape  St.  Vincent  at  about 
six  a.  m.  Shard  took  that  step  that  decided 
his  retirement  from  active  life,  he  turned 
for  the  Mediterranean.  Had  he  held  on 
Southwards  down  the  African  coast  it  is 
doubtful  whether  in  face  of  the  interference 
of  England,  Russia,  France,  Denmark  and 
Spain,  he  could  have  made  piracy  pay;  but 
in  turning  for  the  Mediterranean  he  took 

107 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

what  we  may  call  the  penultimate  step  of 
his  life  which  meant  for  him  settling  down. 
There  were  three  great  courses  of  action 
invented  by  Shard  in  his  youth,  upon  which 
he  pondered  by  day  and  brooded  by  night, 
consolations  in  all  his  dangers,  secret  even 
from  his  men,  three  means  of  escape  as  he 
hoped  from  any  peril  that  might  meet  him 
on  the  sea.  One  of  these  was  the  floating 
island  that  the  Book  of  Wonder  tells  of, 
another  was  so  fantastic  that  we  may  doubt 
if  even  the  brilliant  audacity  of  Shard  could 
ever  have  found  it  practicable,  at  least  he 
never  tried  it  so  far  as  is  known  in  that  tav- 
.ern  by  the  sea  in  which  I  glean  my  news, 
and  the  third  he  determined  on  carrying 
out  as  he  turned  that  morning  for  the  Med- 
iterranean. True  he  might  yet  have  prac- 
tised piracy  in  spite  of  the  step  that  he  took, 
a  little  later  when  the  seas  grew  quiet,  but 
that  penultimate  step  was  like  that  small 
house  in  the  country  that  the  business  man 
has  his  eye  on,  like  some  snug  investment 
put  away  for  old  age,  there  are  certain  final 
courses  in  men's  lives  which  after  taking 
they  never  go  back  to  business. 
He  turned  then  for  the  Mediterranean 

108 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

with  the  English  fleet  behind  him,  and  his 
men  wondered. 

What  madness  was  this,  —  muttered  Bill 
the  Boatswain  in  Old  Frank's  only  ear,— 
with  the  French  fleet  waiting  in  the  Gulf  of 
Lyons  and  the  Spaniards  all  the  way  be- 
tween Sardinia  and  Tunis:  for  they  knew 
the  Spaniards'  ways  And  they  made  a 
deputation  and  waited  upon  Captain  Shard, 
all  of  them  sober  and  wearing  their  costly 
clothes,  and  they  said  that  the  Mediterra- 
nean was  a  trap,  and  all  he  said  was  that  the 
North  wind  should  hold.  And  the  crew 
said  they  were  done. 

So  they  entered  the  Mediterranean  and 
the  English  fleet  came  up  and  closed  the 
straits.  And  Shard  went  tacking  along 
the  Moroccan  coast  with  a  dozen  frigates 
behind  him.  And  the  North  wind  grew 
in  strength.  And  not  till  evening  did  he 
speak  to  his  crew,  and  then  he  gathered 
them  all  together  except  the  man  at  the 
helm,  and  politely  asked  them  to  come 
down  to  the  hold.  And  there  he  showed 
them  six  immense  steel  axles  and  a  dozen 
low  iron  wheels  of  enormous  width  which 
none  had  seen  before;  and  he  told  his  crew 

109 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

how  all  unknown  to  the  world  his  keel  had 
been  specially  fitted  for  these  same  axles 
and  wheels,  and  how  he  meant  soon  to  sail 
to  the  wide  Atlantic  again,  though  not  by 
the  way  of  the  straits.  And  when  they 
heard  the  name  of  the  Atlantic  all  his 
merry  men  cheered,  for  they  looked  on  the 
Atlantic  as  a  wide  safe  sea. 

And  night  came  down  and  Captain  Shard 
sent  for  his  diver.  With  the  sea  getting  up 
it  was  hard  work  for  the  diver,  but  by  mid- 
night things  were  done  to  Shard's  satis- 
faction, and  the  diver  said  that  of  all  the 
jobs  he  had  done  —  but  finding  no  apt  com- 
parison, and  being  in  need  of  a  drink,  silence 
fell  on  him  and  soon  sleep,  and  his  comrades 
carried  him  away  to  his  hammock.  All  the 
next  day  the  chase  went  on  with  the  English 
well  in  sight,  for  Shard  had  lost  time  over- 
night with  his  wheels  and  axles,  and  the 
danger  of  meeting  the  Spaniards  increased 
every  hour;  and  evening  came  when  every 
minute  seemed  dangerous,  yet  they  still 
went  tacking  on  towards  the  East  where 
they  knew  the  Spaniards  must  be. 

And  at  last  they  sighted  their  topsails 
right  ahead,  and  still  Shard  went  on.  It 

no 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

was  a  close  thing,  but  night  was  coming  on, 
and  the  Union  Jack  which  he  hoisted  helped 
Shard  with  the  Spaniards  for  the  last  few 
anxious  minutes,  though  it  seemed  to  anger 
the  English,  but  as  Shard  said, "  There's  no 
pleasing  everyone,"  and  then  the  twilight 
shivered  into  darkness. 

"Hard  to  starboard,"  said  Captain 
Shard. 

The  North  wind  which  had  risen  all  day 
was  now  blowing  a  gale.  I  do  not  know 
what  part  of  the  coast  Shard  steered  for, 
but  Shard  knew,  for  the  coasts  of  the  world 
were  to  him  what  Margate  is  to  some  of  us. 

At  a  place  where  the  desert  rolling  up 
from  mystery  and  from  death,  yea,  from 
the  heart  of  Africa,  emerges  upon  the 
sea,  no  less  grand  than  her,  no  less  terrible, 
even  there  they  sighted  the  land  quite  close, 
almost  in  darkness.  Shard  ordered  every 
man  to  the  hinder  part  of  the  ship  and  all 
the  ballast  too;  and  soon  the  Desperate 
Lark,  her  prow  a  little  high  out  of  the  water, 
doing  her  eighteen  knots  before  the  wind, 
struck  a  sandy  beach  and  shuddered,  she 
heeled  over  a  little,  then  righted  herself,  and 
slowly  headed  into  the  interior  of  Africa. 

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The  men  would  have  given  three  cheers, 
but  after  the  first  Shard  silenced  them  and, 
steering  the  ship  himself,  he  made  them  a 
short  speech  while  the  broad  wheels  pounded 
slowly  over  the  African  sand,  doing  barely 
five  knots  in  a  gale.  The  perils  of  the  sea 
he  said  had  been  greatly  exaggerated. 
Ships  had  been  sailing  the  sea  for  hundreds 
of  years  and  at  sea  you  knew  what  to  do, 
but  on  land  this  was  different.  They  were 
on  land  now  and  they  were  not  to  forget  it. 
At  sea  you  might  make  as  much  noise  as 
you  pleased  and  no  harm  was  done,  but  on 
land  anything  might  happen.  One  of  the 
perils  of  the  land  that  he  instanced  was  that 
of  hanging.  For  every  hundred  men  that 
they  hung  on  land,  he  said,  not  more  than 
twenty  would  be  hung  at  sea.  The  men 
were  to  sleep  at  their  guns.  They  would 
not  go  far  that  night;  for  the  risk  of  being 
wrecked  at  night  was  another  danger  pecul- 
iar to  the  land,  while  at  sea  you  might  sail 
from  set  of  sun  till  dawn :  yet  it  was  essential 
to  get  out  of  sight  of  the  sea  for  if  anyone 
knew  they  were  there  they'd  have  cavalry 
after  them.  And  he  had  sent  back  Smer- 
drak  (a  young  lieutenant  of  pirates)  to 
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cover  their  tracks  where  they  came  up  from 
the  sea.  And  the  merry  men  vigorously 
nodded  their  heads  though  they  did  not  dare 
to  cheer,  and  presently  Smerdrak  came 
running  up  and  they  threw  him  a  rope  by 
the  stern.  And  when  they  had  done  fifteen 
knots  they  anchored,  and  Captain  Shard 
gathered  his  men  about  him  and,  standing 
by  the  land-wheel  in  the  bows,  under  the 
large  and  clear  Algerian  stars,  he  explained 
his  system  of  steering.  There  was  not 
much  to  be  said  for  it,  he  had  with  consid- 
erable ingenuity  detached  and  pivoted  the 
portion  of  the  keel  that  held  the  leading 
axle  and  could  move  it  by  chains  which 
were  controlled  from  the  land-wheel,  thus 
the  front  pair  of  wheels  could  be  deflected 
at  will,  but  only  very  slightly,  and  they 
afterwards  found  that  in  a  hundred  yards 
they  could  only  turn  their  ship  four  yards 
from  her  course.  But  let  not  captains  of 
comfortable  battleships,  or  owners  even  of 
yachts,  criticise  too  harshly  a  man  who  was 
not  of  their  time  and  who  knew  not  modern 
contrivances;  it  should  be  remembered  also 
that  Shard  was  no  longer  at  sea.  His 


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steering  may  have  been  clumsy  but  he  did 
what  he  could. 

When  the  use  and  limitations  of  his 
land-wheel  had  been  made  clear  to  his  men, 
Shard  bade  them  all  turn  in  except  those  on 
watch.  Long  before  dawn  he  woke  them 
and  by  the  very  first  gleam  of  light  they  got 
their  ship  under  way,  so  that  when  those 
two  fleets  that  had  made  so  sure  of  Shard 
closed  in  like  a  great  crescent  on  the  Al- 
gerian coast  there  was  no  sign  to  see  of  the 
Desperate  Lark  either  on  sea  or  land;  and 
the  flags  of  the  Admiral's  ship  broke  out 
into  a  hearty  English  oath. 

The  gale  blew  for  three  days  and,  Shard 
using  more  sail  by  daylight,  they  scudded 
over  the  sands  at  little  less  than  ten  knots, 
though  on  the  report  of  rough  water  ahead 
(as  the  lookout  man  called  rocks,  low  hills 
or  uneven  surface  before  he  adapted  him- 
self to  his  new  surroundings)  the  rate  was 
much  decreased.  Those  were  long  summer 
days  and  Shard  who  was  anxious  while  the 
wind  held  good  to  outpace  the  rumour  of 
his  own  appearance  sailed  for  nineteen  hours 
a  day,  lying  to  at  ten  in  the  evening  and 


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hoisting  sail  again  at  three  a.  m.  when  it 
first  began  to  be  light. 

In  those  three  days  he  did  five  hundred 
miles;  then  the  wind  dropped  to  a  breeze 
though  it  still  blew  from  the  North,  and  for 
a  week  they  did  no  more  than  two  knots 
an  hour.  The  merry  men  began  to  mur- 
mur then.  Luck  had  distinctly  favoured 
Shard  at  first  for  it  sent  him  at  ten  knots 
through  the  only  populous  districts  well 
ahead  of  crowds  except  those  who  chose  to 
run,  and  the  cavalry  were  away  on  a  local 
raid.  As  for  the  runners  they  soon  dropped 
off  when  Shard  pointed  his  cannon  though 
he  did  not  dare  to  fire,  up  there  near  the 
coast;  for  much  as  he  jeered  at  the  intel- 
ligence of  the  English  and  Spanish  Admirals 
in  not  suspecting  his  manoeuvre,  the  only 
one  as  he  said  that  was  possible  in  the  cir- 
cumstances, yet  he  knew  that  cannon  had 
an  obvious  sound  which  would  give  his 
secret  away  to  the  weakest  mind.  Cer- 
tainly luck  had  befriended  him,  and  when 
it  did  so  no  longer  he  made  out  of  the  occa- 
sion all  that  could  be  made;  for  instance 
while  the  wind  held  good  he  had  never 
missed  opportunities  to  revictual,  if  he 

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passed  by  a  village  its  pigs  and  poultry 
were  his,  and  whenever  he  passed  by  water 
he  filled  his  tanks  to  the  brim,  and  now  that 
he  could  only  do  two  knots  he  sailed  all 
night  with  a  man  and  a  lantern  before  him: 
thus  in  that  week  he  did  close  on  four 
hundred  miles  while  another  man  would 
have  anchored  at  night  and  have  missed  five 
or  six  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four.  Yet 
his  men  murmured.  Did  he  think  the  wind 
would  last  for  ever,  they  said.  And  Shard 
only  smoked.  It  was  clear  that  he  was  think- 
ing, and  thinking  hard.  "But  what  is  he 
thinking  about?"  said  Bill  to  Bad  Jack. 
And  Bad  Jack  answered:  "He  may  think 
as  hard  as  he  likes  but  thinking  won't  get  us 
out  of  the  Sahara  if  this  wind  were  to  drop." 
And  towards  the  end  of  that  week  Shard 
went  to  his  chart-room  and  laid  a  new  course 
for  his  ship  a  little  to  the  East  and  towards 
cultivation.  And  one  day  towards  evening 
they  sighted  a  village,  and  twilight  came 
and  the  wind  dropped  altogether.  Then 
the  murmurs  of  the  merry  men  grew  to  oaths 
and  nearly  to  mutiny.  "Where  were 
they  now?"  they  asked,  and  were  they 
being  treated  like  poor  honest  men  ? 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

Shard  quieted  them  by  asking  what  they 
wished  to  do  themselves  and  when  no  one 
had  any  better  plan  than  going  to  the  vil- 
lagers and  saying  that  they  had  been  blown 
out  of  their  course  by  a  storm,  Shard  un- 
folded his  scheme  to  them. 

Long  ago  he  had  heard  how  they  drove 
carts  with  oxen  in  Africa,  oxen  were  very 
numerous  in  these  parts  wherever  there  was 
any  cultivation,  and  for  this  reason  when 
the  wind  had  begun  to  drop  he  had  laid  his 
course  for  the  village :  that  night  the  moment 
it  was  dark  they  were  to  drive  off  fifty  yoke 
of  oxen;  by  midnight  they  must  all  be  yoked 
to  the  bows  and  then  away  they  would  go 
at  a  good  round  gallop. 

So  fine  a  plan  as  this  astonished  the  men 
and  they  all  apologised  for  their  want  of 
faith  in  Shard,  shaking  hands  with  him 
every  one  and  spitting  on  their  hands  before 
they  did  so  in  token  of  good  will. 

The  raid  that  night  succeeded  admirably, 
but  ingenious  as  Shard  was  on  land,  and  a 
past-master  at  sea,  yet  it  must  be  admitted 
that  lack  of  experience  in  this  class  of  sea- 
manship led  him  to  make  a  mistake,  a 
slight  one  it  is  true,  and  one  that  a  little 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

practice  would  have  prevented  altogether: 
the  oxen  could  not  gallop.  Shard  swore  at 
them,  threatened  them  with  his  pistol,  said 
they  should  have  no  food,  and  all  to  no  avail : 
that  night  and  as  long  as  they  pulled  the 
bad  ship  Desperate  Lark  they  did  one  knot 
an  hour  and  no  more.  Shard's  failures  like 
everything  that  came  his  way  were  used  as 
stones  in  the  edifice  of  his  future  success, 
he  went  at  once  to  his  chart-room  and 
worked  out  all  his  calculations  anew. 

The  matter  of  the  oxen's  pace  made  pur- 
suit impossible  to  avoid.  Shard  therefore 
countermanded  his  order  to  his  lieutenant 
to  cover  the  tracks  in  the  sand,  and  the 
Desperate  Lark  plodded  on  into  the  Sahara 
on  her  new  course  trusting  to  her  guns. 

The  village  was  not  a  large  one  and  the 
little  crowd  that  was  sighted  astern  next 
morning  disappeared  after  the  first  shot 
from  the  cannon  in  the  stern.  At  first 
Shard  made  the  oxen  wear  rough  iron  bits, 
another  of  his  mistakes,  and  strong  bits  too. 
"For  if  they  run  away/' he  had  said,  "we 
might  as  well  be  driving  before  a  gale  and 
there's  no  saying  where  we'd  find  ourselves," 
but  after  a  day  or  two  he  found  that  the  bits 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

were  no  good  and,  like  the  practical  man  he 
was,  immediately  corrected  his  mistake. 

And  now  the  crew  sang  merry  songs  all 
day  bringing  out  mandolins  and  clarionets 
and  cheering  Captain  Shard.  All  were 
jolly  except  the  captain  himself  whose  face 
was  moody  and  perplexed;  he  alone  expected 
to  hear  more  of  those  villagers;  and  the 
oxen  were  drinking  up  the  water  every  day, 
he  alone  feared  that  there  was  no  more  to 
be  had,  and  a  very  unpleasant  fear  that  is 
when  your  ship  is  becalmed  in  a  desert. 
For  over  a  week  they  went  on  like  this  doing 
ten  knots  a  day  and  the  music  and  singing 
got  on  the  captain's  nerves,  but  he  dared 
not  tell  his  men  what  the  trouble  was.  And 
then  one  day  the  oxen  drank  up  the  last  of 
the  water.  And  Lieutenant  Smerdrak 
came  and  reported  the  fact. 

"Give  them  rum,"  said  Shard,  and  he 
cursed  the  oxen.  "What  is  good  enough 
for  me,"  he  said,  "should  be  good  enough 
for  them,"  and  he  swore  that  they  should 
have  rum. 

"Aye,  aye,  sir,"  said  the  young  lieutenant 
of  pirates. 

Shard  should  not  be  judged  by  the  orders 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

he  gave  that  day,  for  nearly  a  fortnight  he 
had  watched  the  doom  that  was  coming 
slowly  towards  him,  discipline  cut  him  off 
from  anyone  that  might  have  shared  his 
fear  and  discussed  it,  and  all  the  while  he 
had  had  to  navigate  his  ship,  which  even  at 
sea  is  an  arduous  responsibility.  These 
things  had  fretted  the  calm  of  that  clear 
judgment  that  had  once  baffled  five  navies. 
Therefore  he  cursed  the  oxen  and  ordered 
them  rum,  and  Smerdrak  had  said  "Aye, 
aye,  sir,"  and  gone  below. 

Towards  sunset  Shard  was  standing  on 
the  poop,  thinking  of  death;  it  would  not 
come  to  him  by  thirst;  mutiny  first,  he 
thought.  The  oxen  were  refusing  rum  for 
the  last  time,  and  the  men  were  beginning 
to  eye  Captain  Shard  in  a  very  ominous 
way,  not  muttering,  but  each  man  looking 
at  him  with  a  sidelong  look  of  the  eye  as 
though  there  were  only  one  thought  among 
them  all  that  had  no  need  of  words.  A 
score  of  geese  like  a  long  letter  "V"  were 
crossing  the  evening  sky,  they  slanted  their 
necks  and  all  went  twisting  downwards 
somewhere  about  the  horizon.  Captain 
Shard  rushed  to  his  chart-room,  and  pres- 
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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

ently  the  men  came  in  at  the  door  with  Old 
Frank  in  front  looking  awkward  and  twist- 
ing his  cap  in  his  hand. 

"What  is  it?"  said  Shard  as  though  noth- 
ing were  wrong. 

Then  Old  Frank  said  what  he  had  come 
to  say:  "We  want  to  know  what  you  be 
going  to  do." 

And  the  men  nodded  grimly. 

"Get  water  for  the  oxen,"  said  Captain 
Shard,  "as  the  swine  won't  have  rum,  and 
they'll  have  to  work  for  it,  the  lazy  beasts. 
Up  anchor!" 

And  at  the  word  water  a  look  came  into 
their  faces  like  when  some  wanderer  suddenly 
thinks  of  home. 

"Water!"  they  said. 

"Why  not?"  said  Captain  Shard.  And 
none  of  them  ever  knew  that  but  for  those 
geese,  that  slanted  their  necks  and  suddenly 
twisted  downwards,  they  would  have  found 
no  water  that  night  nor  ever  after,  and  the 
Sahara  would  have  taken  them  as  she  has 
taken  so  many  and  shall  take  so  many  more. 
All  that  night  they  followed  their  new 
course:  at  dawn  they  found  an  oasis  and 
the  oxen  drank. 

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And  here,  on  this  green  acre  or  so  with 
its  palm-trees  and  its  well,  beleaguered  by 
thousands  of  miles  of  desert  and  holding 
out  through  the  ages,  here  they  decided  to 
stay:  for  those  who  have  been  without 
water  for  a  while  in  one  of  Africa's  deserts 
come  to  have  for  that  simple  fluid  such  a 
regard  as  you,  0  reader,  might  not  easily 
credit.  And  here  each  man  chose  a  site 
where  he  would  build  his  hut,  and  settle 
down,  and  marry  perhaps,  and  even  forget 
the  sea;  when  Captain  Shard  having  filled 
his  tanks  and  barrels  peremptorily  ordered 
them  to  weigh  anchor.  There  was  much 
dissatisfaction,  even  some  grumbling,  but 
when  a  man  has  twice  saved  his  fellows 
from  death  by  the  sheer  freshness  of  his 
mind  they  come  to  have  a  respect  for  his 
judgment  that  is  not  shaken  by  trifles.  It 
must  be  remembered  that  in  the  affair  of 
the  dropping  of  the  wind  and  again  when 
they  ran  out  of  water  these  men  were  at 
their  wits'  end:  so  was  Shard  on  the  last 
occasion,  but  that  they  did  not  know.  All 
this  Shard  knew,  and  he  chose  this  occasion 
to  strengthen  the  reputation  that  he  had 
in  the  minds  of  the  men  of  that  bad  ship  by 
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The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

explaining  to  them  his  motives,  which  usu- 
ally he  kept  secret.  The  oasis  he  said  must 
be  a  port  of  call  for  all  the  travellers  within 
hundreds  of  miles:  how  many  men  did  you 
see  gathered  together  in  any  part  of  the 
world  where  there  was  a  drop  of  whiskey  to 
be  had!  And  water  here  was  rarer  than 
whiskey  in  decent  countries  and,  such  was 
the  peculiarity  of  the  Arabs,  even  more 
precious.  Another  thing  he  pointed  out 
to  them,  the  Arabs  were  a  singularly  inquis- 
itive people  and  if  they  came  upon  a  ship 
in  the  desert  they  would  probably  talk 
about  it;  and  the  world  having  a  wickedly 
malicious  tongue  would  never  construe  in 
its  proper  light  their  difference  with  the 
English  and  Spanish  fleets,  but  would 
merely  side  with  the  strong  against  the 
weak. 

And  the  men  sighed,  and  sang  the  capstan 
song  and  hoisted  the  anchor  and  yoked  the 
oxen  up,  and  away  they  went  doing  their 
steady  knot,  which  nothing  could  increase. 
It  may  be  thought  strange  that  with  all 
sail  furled  in  dead  calm  and  while  the  oxen 
rested  they  should  have  cast  anchor  at  all. 
But  custom  is  not  easily  overcome  and  long 
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survives  its  use.  Rather  enquire  how  many 
such  useless  customs  we  ourselves  preserve: 
the  flaps  for  instance  to  pull  up  the  tops  of 
hunting-boots  though  the  tops  no  longer 
pull  up,  the  bows  on  our  evening  shoes  that 
neither  tie  nor  untie.  They  said  they  felt 
safer  that  way  and  there  was  an  end  of  it. 

Shard  lay  a  course  of  South  by  West  and 
they  did  ten  knots  that  day,  the  next  day 
they  did  seven  or  eight  and  Shard  hove  to. 
Here  he  intended  to  stop,  they  had  huge 
supplies  of  fodder  on  board  for  the  oxen, 
for  his  men  he  had  a  pig  or  so,  plenty  of 
poultry,  several  sacks  of  biscuits  and  ninety- 
eight  oxen  (for  two  were  already  eaten),  and 
they  were  only  twenty  miles  from  water. 
Here  he  said  they  would  stay  till  folks  forgot 
their  past,  someone  would  invent  something 
or  some  new  thing  would  turn  up  to  take 
folks'  minds  off  them  and  the  ships  he  had 
sunk:  he  forgot  that  there  are  men  who  are 
well  paid  to  remember. 

Half  way  between  him  and  the  oasis  he 
established  a  little  depot  where  he  buried 
his  water-barrels.  As  soon  as  a  barrel  was 
empty  he  sent  hah0  a  dozen  men  to  roll  it  by 
turns  to  the  depot.  This  they  would  do  at 
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night,  keeping  hid  by  day,  and  next  night 
they  would  push  on  to  the  oasis,  fill  the 
barrel  and  roll  it  back.  Thus  only  ten 
miles  away  he  soon  had  a  store  of  water, 
unknown  to  the  thirstiest  native  of  Africa, 
from  which  he  could  safely  replenish  his 
tanks  at  will.  He  allowed  his  men  to  sing 
and  even  within  reason  to  light  fires.  Those 
were  jolly  nights  while  the  rum  held  out; 
sometimes  they  saw  gazelles  watching  them 
curiously,  sometimes  a  lion  went  by  over 
the  sand,  the  sound  of  his  roar  added  to 
their  sense  of  the  security  of  their  ship;  all 
round  them  level,  immense  lay  the  Sahara: 
"This  is  better  than  an  English  prison," 
said  Captain  Shard. 

And  still  the  dead  calm  lasted,  not  even 
the  sand  whispered  at  night  to  little  winds; 
and  when  the  rum  gave  out  and  it  looked 
like  trouble,  Shard  reminded  them  what 
little  use  it  had  been  to  them  when  it  was  all 
they  had  and  the  oxen  wouldn't  look  at  it. 

And  the  days  wore  on  with  singing,  and 
even  dancing  at  times,  and  at  nights  round 
a  cautious  fire  in  a  hollow  of  sand  with  only 
one  man  on  watch  they  told  tales  of  the  sea. 
It  was  all  a  relief  after  arduous  watches  and 

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sleeping  by  the  guns,  a  rest  to  strained 
nerves  and  eyes;  and  all  agreed,  for  all  that 
they  missed  their  rum,  that  the  best  place 
for  a  ship  like  theirs  was  the  land. 

This  was  in  Latitude  23  North,  Longi- 
tude 4  East,  where,  as  I  have  said,  a  ship's 
broadside  was  heard  for  the  first  time  and 
the  last.  It  happened  this  way. 

They  had  been  there  several  weeks  and 
had  eaten  perhaps  ten  or  a  dozen  oxen  and 
all  that  while  there  had  been  no  breath  of 
wind  and  they  had  seen  no  one:  when  one 
morning  about  two  bells  when  the  crew 
were  at  breakfast  the  lookout  man  reported 
cavalry  on  the  port  side.  Shard  who  had 
already  surrounded  his  ship  with  sharpened 
stakes  ordered  all  his  men  on  board,  the 
young  trumpeter  who  prided  himself  on 
having  picked  up  the  ways  of  the  land, 
sounded  "Prepare  to  receive  cavalry";. 
Shard  sent  a  few  men  below  with  pikes  to 
the  lower  port-holes,  two  more  aloft  with 
muskets,  the  rest  to  the  guns,  he  changed 
the  "grape"  or  "canister"  with  which  the 
guns  were  loaded  in  case  of  surprise,  for 
shot,  cleared  the  decks,  drew  in  ladders,  and 
before  the  cavalry  came  within  range  every- 

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thing  was  ready  for  them.  The  oxen  were 
always  yoked  in  order  that  Shard  could 
manoeuvre  his  ship  at  a  moment's  notice. 

When  first  sighted  the  cavalry  were  trot- 
ting but  they  were  coming  on  now  at  a  slow 
canter.  Arabs  in  white  robes  on  good 
horses.  Shard  estimated  that  there  were 
two  or  three  hundred  of  them.  At  sixty 
yards  Shard  opened  with  one  gun,  he  had 
had  the  distance  measured,  but  had  never 
practised  for  fear  of  being  heard  at  the  oasis: 
the  shot  went  high.  The  next  one  fell  short 
and  ricochetted  over  the  Arabs'  heads. 
Shard  had  the  range  then  and  by  the  time 
the  ten  remaining  guns  of  his  broadside  were 
given  the  same  elevation  as  that  of  his  sec- 
ond gun  the  Arabs  had  come  to  the  spot 
where  the  last  shot  pitched.  The  broad- 
side hit  the  horses,  mostly  low,  and  rico- 
chetted on  amongst  them;  one  cannon-ball 
striking  a  rock  at  the  horses'  feet  shattered 
it  and  sent  fragments  flying  amongst  the 
Arabs  with  the  peculiar  scream  of  things  set 
free  by  projectiles  from  their  motionless 
harmless  state,  and  the  cannon-ball  went 
on  with  them  with  a  great  howl,  this  shot 
alone  killed  three  men. 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

"Very  satisfactory,"  said  Shard  rubbing 
his  chin.  "Load  with  grape,"  he  added 
sharply. 

The  broadside  did  not  stop  the  Arabs  nor 
even  reduce  their  speed  but  they  crowded 
in  closer  together  as  though  for  company 
in  their  time  of  danger,  which  they  should 
not  have  done.  They  were  four  hundred 
yards  off  now,  three  hundred  and  fifty;  and 
then  the  muskets  began,  for  the  two  men  in 
the  crow's-nest  had  thirty  loaded  muskets 
besides  a  few  pistols,  the  muskets  all  stood 
round  them  leaning  against  the  rail;  they 
picked  them  up  and  fired  them  one  by  one. 
Every  shot  told,  but  still  the  Arabs  came  on. 
They  were  galloping  now.  It  took  some 
time  to  load  the  guns  in  those  days.  Three 
hundred  yards,  two  hundred  and  fifty,  men 
dropping  all  the  way,  two  hundred  yards; 
Old  Frank  for  all  his  one  ear  had  terrible 
eyes;  it  was  pistols  now,  they  had  fired  all 
their  muskets;  a  hundred  and  fifty;  Shard 
had  marked  the  fifties  with  little  white 
stones.  Old  Frank  and  Bad  Jack  up  aloft 
felt  pretty  uneasy  when  they  saw  the  Arabs 
had  come  to  that  little  white  stone,  they 
both  missed  their  shots. 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

"All  ready?"  said  Captain  Shard. 

"Aye,  aye,  sir,"  said  Smerdrak. 

"Right,"  said  Captain  Shard  raising  a 
finger. 

A  hundred  and  fifty  yards  is  a  bad  range 
at  which  to  be  caught  by  grape  (or  "case"  as 
we  call  it  now),  the  gunners  can  hardly  miss 
and  the  charge  has  time  to  spread.  Shard 
estimated  afterwards  that  he  got  thirty 
Arabs  by  that  broadside  alone  and  as  many 
horses. 

There  were  close  on  two  hundred  of  them 
still  on  their  horses,  yet  the  broadside  of 
grape  had  unsettled  them,  they  surged 
round  the  ship  but  seemed  doubtful  what  to 
do.  They  carried  swords  and  scimitars  in 
their  hands,  though  most  had  strange  long 
muskets  slung  behind  them,  a  few  unslung 
them  and  began  firing  wildly.  They  could 
not  reach  Shard's  merry  men  with  their 
swords.  Had  it  not  been  for  that  broadside 
that  took  them  when  it  did  they  might  have 
climbed  up  from  their  horses  and  carried  the 
bad  ship  by  sheer  force  of  numbers,  but 
they  would  have  had  to  have  been  very 
steady,  and  the  broadside  spoiled  all  that. 
Their  best  course  was  to  have  concentrated 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

all  their  efforts  in  setting  fire  to  the  ship  but 
this  they  did  not  attempt.  Part  of  them 
swarmed  all  round  the  ship  brandishing 
their  swords  and  looking  vainly  for  an  easy 
entrance;  perhaps  they  expected  a  door, 
they  were  not  sea-faring  people;  but  their 
leaders  were  evidently  set  on  driving  off  the 
oxen  not  dreaming  that  the  Desperate  Lark 
had  other  means  of  travelling.  And  this  to 
some  extent  they  succeeded  in  doing. 
Thirty  they  drove  off,  cutting  the  traces, 
twenty  they  killed  on  the  spot  with  their 
scimitars  though  the  bow  gun  caught  them 
twice  as  they  did  their  work,  and  ten  more 
were  unluckily  killed  by  Shard's  bow  gun. 
Before  they  could  fire  a  third  time  from  the 
bows  they  all  galloped  away,  firing  back  at 
the  oxen  with  their  muskets  and  killing 
three  more,  and  what  troubled  Shard  more 
than  the  loss  of  his  oxen  was  the  way  that 
they  manoeuvred,  galloping  off  just  when 
the  bow  gun  was  ready  and  riding  off  by  the 
port  bow  where  the  broadside  could  not  get 
them,  which  seemed  to  him  to  show  more 
knowledge  of  guns  than  they  could  have 
learned  on  that  bright  morning.  What, 
thought  Shard  to  himself,  if  they  should 

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The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

bring  big  guns  against  the  Desperate  Lark! 
And  the  mere  thought  of  it  made  him  rail 
at  Fate.  But  the  merry  men  all  cheered 
when  they  rode  away.  Shard  had  only 
twenty-two  oxen  left,  and  then  a  score  or  so 
of  the  Arabs  dismounted  while  the  rest  rode 
further  on  leading  their  horses.  And  the 
dismounted  men  lay  down  on  the  port  bow 
behind  some  rocks  two  hundred  yards  away 
and  began  to  shoot  at  the  oxen.  Shard  had 
just  enough  of  them  left  to  manoeuvre  his 
ship  with  an  effort  and  he  turned  his  ship 
a  few  points  to  the  starboard  so  as  to  get  a 
broadside  at  the  rocks.  But  grape  was  of 
no  use  here  as  the  only  way  he  could  get  an 
Arab  was  by  hitting  one  of  the  rocks  with 
shot  behind  which  an  Arab  was  lying,  and 
the  rocks  were  not  easy  to  hit  except  by 
chance,  and  as  often  as  he  manoeuvred  his 
ship  the  Arabs  changed  their  ground.  This 
went  on  all  day  while  the  mounted  Arabs 
hovered  out  of  range  watching  what  Shard 
would  do;  and  all  the  while  the  oxen  were 
growing  fewer,  so  good  a  mark  were  they, 
until  only  ten  were  left,  and  the  ship  could 
manoeuvre  no  longer.  But  then  they  all 
rode  off. 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

The  merry  men  were  delighted,  they  cal- 
culated that  one  way  and  another  they  had 
unhorsed  a  hundred  Arabs  and  on  board 
there  had  been  no  more  than  one  man 
wounded:  Bad  Jack  had  been  hit  in  the 
wrist;  probably  by  a  bullet  meant  for  the 
men  at  the  guns,  for  the  Arabs  were  firing 
high.  They  had  captured  a  horse  and  had 
found  quaint  weapons  on  the  bodies  of  the 
dead  Arabs  and  an  interesting  kind  of 
tobacco.  It  was  evening  now  and  they 
talked  over  the  fight,  made  jokes  about  their 
luckier  shots,  smoked  their  new  tobacco  and 
sang;  altogether  it  was  the  j oiliest  evening 
they'd  had.  But  Shard  alone  on  the  quar- 
ter-deck paced  to  and  fro  pondering,  brood- 
ing and  wondering.  He  had  chopped  off 
Bad  Jack's  wounded  hand  and  given  him  a 
hook  out  of  store,  for  captain  does  doctor 
upon  these  occasions  and  Shard,  who  was 
ready  for  most  things,  kept  half  a  dozen  or 
so  of  neat  new  limbs,  and  of  course  a  chopper. 
Bad  Jack  had  gone  below  swearing  a  little 
and  said  he'd  Be  down  for  a  bit,  the  men 
were  smoking  and  singing  on  the  sand,  and 
Shard  was  there  alone.  The  thought  that 
troubled  Shard  was:  What  would  the  Arabs 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

do?  They  did  not  look  like  men  to  go 
away  for  nothing.  And  at  back  of  all  his 
thoughts  was  one  that  reiterated  guns, 
guns,  guns.  He  argued  with  himself  that 
they  could  not  drag  them  all  that  way  on 
the  sand,  that  the  Desperate  Lark  was  not 
worth  it,  that  they  had  given  it  up.  Yet 
he  knew  in  his  heart  that  that  was  what 
they  would  do.  He  knew  there  were 
fortified  towns  in  Africa,  and  as  for  its  being 
worth  it,  he  knew  that  there  was  no  pleas- 
ant thing  left  now  to  those  defeated  men 
except  revenge,  and  if  the  Desperate  Lark 
had  come  over  the  sand  why  not  guns  ?  He 
knew  that  the  ship  could  never  hold  out 
against  guns  and  cavalry,  a  week  perhaps, 
two  weeks,  even  three:  what  difference  did  it 
make  how  long  it  was,  and  the  men  sang: 

Away  we  go, 

Oho,  Oho,  Oho, 
A  drop  of  rum  for  you  and  me 
And  the  world's  as  round  as  the  letter  0 
And  round  it  runs  the  sea. 

A  melancholy  settled  down  on  Shard. 
About  sunset  Lieutenant  Smerdrak  came 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

up  for  orders.  Shard  ordered  a  trench  to 
be  dug  along  the  port  side  of  the  ship.  The 
men  wanted  to  sing  and  grumbled  at  having 
to  dig,  especially  as  Shard  never  mentioned 
his  fear  of  guns,  but  he  fingered  his  pistols 
and  in  the  end  Shard  had  his  way.  No  one 
on  board  could  shoot  like  Captain  Shard. 
That  is  often  the  way  with  captains  of  pirate 
ships,  it  is  a  difficult  position  to  hold.  Dis- 
cipline is  essential  to  those  that  have  the 
right  to  fly  the  skull-and-cross-bones,  and 
Shard  was  the  man  to  enforce  it.  It  was 
starlight  by  the  time  the  trench  was  dug  to 
the  captain's  satisfaction  and  the  men  that 
it  was  to  protect  when  the  worst  came  to 
the  worst  swore  all  the  time  as  they  dug. 
And  when  it  was  finished  they  clamoured 
to  make  a  feast  on  some  of  the  killed  oxen, 
and  this  Shard  let  them  do.  And  they  lit 
a  huge  fire  for  the  first  time,  burning  abun- 
dant scrub,  they  thinking  that  Arabs  daren't 
return,  Shard  knowing  that  concealment 
was  now  useless.  All  that  night  they 
feasted  and  sang,  and  Shard  sat  up  in  his 
chart-room  making  his  plans. 

When  morning  came  they  rigged  up  the 
cutter  as  they  called  the  captured  horse  and 

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The  Last  Book,  of  Wonder 

told  off  her  crew.  As  there  were  only  two 
men  that  could  ride  at  all  these  became  the 
crew  of  the  cutter.  Spanish  Dick  and  Bill 
the  Boatswain  were  the  two. 

Shard's  orders  were  that  turn  and  turn 
about  they  should  take  command  of  the 
cutter  and  cruise  about  five  miles  off  to  the 
North  East  all  the  day  but  at  night  they 
were  to  come  in.  And  they  fitted  the  horse 
up  with  a  flagstaff  in  front  of  the  saddle  so 
that  they  could  signal  from  her,  and  carried 
an  anchor  behind  for  fear  she  should  run 
away. 

And  as  soon  as  Spanish  Dick  had  ridden 
off  Shard  sent  some  men  to  roll  all  the  bar- 
rels back  from  the  depot  where  they  were 
buried  in  the  sand,  with  orders  to  watch  the 
cutter  all  the  time  and,  if  she  signalled,  to 
return  as  fast  as  they  could. 

They  buried  the  Arabs  that  day,  remov- 
ing their  water-bottles  and  any  provisions 
they  had,  and  that  night  they  got  all  the 
water-barrels  in,  and  for  days  nothing  hap- 
pened. One  event  of  extraordinary  impor- 
tance did  indeed  occur,  the  wind  got  up  one 
day,  but  it  was  due  South,  and  as  the  oasis 
lay  to  the  North  of  them  and  beyond  that 

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The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

they  might  pick  up  the  camel  track  Shard 
decided  to  stay  where  he  was.  If  it  had 
looked  to  him  like  lasting  Shard  might  have 
hoisted  sail  but  it  dropped  at  evening  as  he 
knew  it  would,  and  in  any  case  it  was  not 
the  wind  he  wanted.  And  more  days  went 
by,  two  weeks  without  a  breeze.  The  dead 
oxen  would  not  keep  and  they  had  had  to 
kill  three  more,  there  were  only  seven  left 
now. 

Never  before  had  the  men  been  so  long 
without  rum.  And  Captain  Shard  had 
doubled  the  watch  besides  making  two  more 
men  sleep  at  the  guns.  They  had  tired  of 
their  simple  games,  and  most  of  their  songs, 
and  their  tales  that  were  never  true  were  no 
longer  new.  And  then  one  day  the  monot- 
ony of  the  desert  came  down  upon  them. 

There  is  a  fascination  in  the  Sahara,  a  day 
there  is  delightful,  a  week  is  pleasant,  a  fort- 
night is  a  matter  of  opinion,  but  it  was  run- 
ning into  months.  The  men  were  perfectly 
polite  but  the  boatswain  wanted  to  know 
when  Shard  thought  of  moving  on.  It  was 
an  unreasonable  question  to  ask  of  the  cap- 
tain of  any  ship  in  a  dead  calm  in  a  desert, 
but  Shard  said  he  would  set  a  course  and  let 
130 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

him  know  in  a  day  or  two.  And  a  day  or 
two  went  by  over  the  monotony  of  the 
Sahara,  who  for  monotony  is  unequalled  by 
all  the  parts  of  the  earth.  Great  marshes 
cannot  equal  it,  nor  plains  of  grass  nor  the 
sea,  the  Sahara  alone  lies  unaltered  by  the 
seasons,  she  has  no  altering  surface,  no 
flowers  to  fade  or  grow,  year  in  year  out  she 
is  changeless  for  hundreds  and  hundreds  of 
miles.  And  the  boatswain  came  again  and 
took  off  his  cap  and  asked  Captain  Shard  to 
be  so  kind  as  to  tell  them  about  his  new 
course.  Shard  said  he  meant  to  stay  until 
they  had  eaten  three  more  of  the  oxen  as 
they  could  only  take  three  of  them  in  the 
hold,  there  were  only  six  left  now.  But 
what  if  there  was  no  wind,  the  boatswain 
said.  And  at  that  moment  the  faintest 
breeze  from  the  North  ruffled  the  boat- 
swain's forelock  as  he  stood  with  his  cap  in 
his  hand. 

"Don't  talk  about  the  wind  to  me"  said 
Captain  Shard:  and  Bill  was  a  little  fright- 
ened for  Shard's  mother  had  been  a  gipsy. 

But  it  was  only  a  breeze  astray,  a  trick  of 
the  Sahara.     And  another  week  went  by 
and  they  ate  two  more  oxen. 
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The  Last  Boofy  of  Wonder 

They  obeyed  Captain  Shard  ostenta- 
tiously now  but  they  wore  ominous  looks. 
Bill  came  again  and  Shard  answered  him  in 
Romany. 

Things  were  like  this  one  hot  Sahara 
morning  when  the  cutter  signalled.  The 
lookout  man  told  Shard  and  Shard  read  the 
message,  "  Cavalry  astern"  it  read,  and 
then  a  little  later  she  signalled,"  With  guns." 

"Ah,"  said  Captain  Shard. 

One  ray  of  hope  Shard  had;  the  flags  on 
the  cutter  fluttered.  For  the  first  time  for 
five  weeks  a  light  breeze  blew  from  the 
North,  very  light,  you  hardly  felt  it. 
Spanish  Dick  rode  in  and  anchored  his  horse 
to  starboard  and  the  cavalry  came  on 
slowly  from  the  port. 

Not  till  the  afternoon  did  they  come  in 
sight,  and  all  the  while  that  little  breeze  was 
blowing. 

"One  knot,"  said  Shard  at  noon.  "Two 
knots,"  he  said  at  six  bells  and  still  it  grew 
and  the  Arabs  trotted  nearer.  By  five 
o'clock  the  merry  men  of  the  bad  ship 
Desperate  Lark  could  make  out  twelve  long 
old-fashioned  guns  on  low  wheeled  carts 
dragged  by  horses  and  what  looked  like 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

lighter  guns  carried  on  camels.  The  wind 
was  blowing  a  little  stronger  now.  "Shall 
we  hoist  sail,  sir?"  said  Bill. 

"Not  yet,"  said  Shard. 

By  six  o'clock  the  Arabs  were  just  out- 
side the  range  of  cannon  and  there  they 
halted.  Then  followed  an  anxious  hour  or 
so,  but  the  Arabs  came  no  nearer.  They 
evidently  meant  to  wait  till  dark  to  bring 
their  guns  up.  Probably  they  intended  to 
dig  a  gun  epaulment  from  which  they  could 
safely  pound  away  at  the  ship. 

"We  could  do  three  knots,"  said  Shard 
half  to  himself  as  he  was  walking  up  and 
down  his  quarter-deck  with  very  fast  short 
paces.  And  then  the  sun  set  and  they 
heard  the  Arabs  praying  and  Shard's  merry 
men  cursed  at  the  top  of  their  voices  to 
show  that  they  were  as  good  men  as  they. 

The  Arabs  had  come  no  nearer,  waiting 
for  night.  They  did  not  know  how  Shard 
was  longing  for  it  too,  he  was  gritting  his 
teeth  and  sighing  for  it,  he  even  would  have 
prayed,  but  that  he  feared  that  it  might 
remind  Heaven  of  him  and  his  merry  men. 

Night  came  and  the  stars.  "Hoist  sail," 
said  Shard.  The  men  sprang  to  their 
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The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

places,  they  had  had  enough  of  that  silent 
lonely  spot.  They  took  the  oxen  on  board 
and  let  the  great  sails  down,  and  like  a  lover 
coming  from  over  sea,  long  dreamed  of, 
long  expected,  like  a  lost  friend  seen  again 
after  many  years,  the  North  wind  came  into 
the  pirates'  sails.  And  before  Shard  could 
stop  it  a  ringing  English  cheer  went  away 
to  the  wondering  Arabs. 

They  started  off  at  three  knots  and  soon 
they  might  have  done  four  but  Shard 
would  not  risk  it  at  night.  All  night  the 
wind  held  good,  and  doing  three  knots  from 
ten  to  four  they  were  far  out  of  sight  of  the 
Arabs  when  daylight  came.  And  then 
Shard  hoisted  more  sail  and  they  did  four 
knots  and  by  eight  bells  they  were  doing 
four  and  a  half.  The  spirits  of  those  vol- 
atile men  rose  high,  and  discipline  became 
perfect.  So  long  as  there  was  wind  in  the 
sails  and  water  in  the  tanks  Captain  Shard 
felt  safe  at  least  from  mutiny.  Great  men 
can  only  be  overthrown  while  their  fortunes 
are  at  their  lowest.  Having  failed  to  depose 
Shard  when  his  plans  were  open  to  criticism 
and  he  himself  scarce  knew  what  to  do  next 
it  was  hardly  likely  they  could  do  it  now; 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

and  whatever  we  think  of  his  past  and  his 
way  of  living  we  cannot  deny  that  Shard 
was  among  the  great  men  of  the  world. 

Of  defeat  by  the  Arabs  he  did  not  feel  so 
sure.  It  was  useless  to  try  to  cover  his 
tracks  even  if  he  had  had  time,  the  Arab 
cavalry  could  have  picked  them  up  any- 
where. And  he  was  afraid  of  their  camels 
with  those  light  guns  on  board,  he  had  heard 
they  could  do  seven  knots  and  keep  it  up 
most  of  the  day  and  if  as  much  as  one  shot 
struck  the  mainmast  ....  and  Shard 
taking  his  mind  off  useless  fears  worked  out 
on  his  chart  when  the  Arabs  were  likely  to 
overtake  them.  He  told  his  men  that  the 
wind  would  hold  good  for  a  week,  and,  gipsy 
or  no,  he  certainly  knew  as  much  about  the 
wind  as  is  good  for  a  sailor  to  know. 

Alone  in  his  chart-room  he  worked  it  out 
like  this,  mark  two  hours  to  the  good  for 
surprise  and  finding  the  tracks  and  delay  in 
starting,  say  three  hours  if  the  guns  were 
mounted  in  their  epaulments,  then  the 
Arabs  should  start  at  seven.  Supposing 
the  camels  go  twelve  hours  a  day  at  seven 
knots  they  would  do  eighty-four  knots  a  day, 
while  Shard  doing  three  knots  from  ten  to 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

four,  and  four  knots  the  rest  of  the  time,  was 
doing  ninety  and  actually  gaining.  But 
when  it  came  to  it  he  wouldn't  risk  more 
than  two  knots  at  night  while  the  enemy 
were  out  of  sight,  for  he  rightly  regarded 
anything  more  than  that  as  dangerous  when 
sailing  on  land  at  night,  so  he  too  did  eighty- 
four  knots  a  day.  It  was  a  pretty  race.  I 
have  not  troubled  to  see  if  Shard  added  up 
his  figures  wrongly  or  if  he  under-rated  the 
pace  of  camels,  but  whatever  it  was  the 
Arabs  gained  slightly,  for  on  the  fourth  day 
Spanish  Jack,  five  knots  astern  on  what  they 
called  the  cutter,  sighted  the  camels  a  very 
long  way  off  and  signalled  the  fact  to  Shard 
They  had  left  their  cavalry  behind  as  Shard 
supposed  they  would.  The  wind  held  good, 
they  had  still  two  oxen  left  and  could  always 
eat  their  " cutter",  and  they  had  a  fair, 
though  not  ample,  supply  of  water,  but  the 
appearance  of  the  Arabs  was  a  blow  to  Shard 
for  it  showed  him  that  there  was  no  getting 
away  from  them,  and  of  all  things  he 
dreaded  guns.  He  made  light  of  it  to  the 
men:  said  they  would  sink  the  lot  before 
they  had  been  in  action  half  an  hour:  yet 
he  feared  that  once  the  guns  came  up  it  was 

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The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

only  a  question  of  time  before  his  rigging 
was  cut  or  his  steering  gear  disabled. 

One  point  the  Desperate  Lark  scored  over 
the  Arabs  and  a  very  good  one  too,  darkness 
fell  just  before  they  could  have  sighted  her 
and  now  Shard  used  the  lantern  ahead  as  he 
dared  not  do  on  the  first  night  when  the 
Arabs  were  close,  and  with  the  help  of  it 
managed  to  do  three  knots.  The  Arabs  en- 
camped in  the  evening  and  the  Desperate 
Lark  gained  twenty  knots.  But  the  next 
evening  they  appeared  again  and  this  time 
they  saw  the  sails  of  the  Desperate  Lark. 

On  the  sixth  day  they  were  close.  On  the 
seventh  they  were  closer.  And  then,  a  line 
of  verdure  across  their  bows,  Shard  saw  the 
Niger  River. 

Whether  he  knew  that  for  a  thousand 
miles  it  rolled  its  course  through  forest, 
whether  he  even  knew  that  it  was  there  at 
all;  what  his  plans  were,  or  whether  he  lived 
from  day  to  day  like  a  man  whose  days  are 
numbered  he  never  told  his  men.  Nor  can 
I  get  an  indication  on  this  point  from  the 
tank  that  I  hear  from  sailors  in  their  cups  in 
a  certain  tavern  I  know  of.  His  face  was 
expressionless,  his  mouth  shut,  and  he  held 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

his  ship  to  her  course.  That  evening  they 
were  up  to  the  edge  of  the  tree  trunks  and 
the  Arabs  camped  and  waited  ten  knots 
astern  and  the  wind  had  sunk  a  little. 

There  Shard  anchored  a  little  before  sun- 
set and  landed  at  once.  At  first  he  explored 
the  forest  a  little  on  foot.  Then  he  sent  for 
Spanish  Dick.  They  had  slung  the  cutter 
on  board  some  days  ago  when  they  found 
she  could  not  keep  up.  Shard  could  not 
ride  but  he  sent  for  Spanish  Dick  and  told 
him  he  must  take  him  as  a  passenger.  So 
Spanish  Dick  slung  him  in  front  of  the  sad- 
dle "before  the  mast"  as  Shard  called  it, for 
they  still  carried  a  mast  on  the  front  of  the 
saddle,  and  away  they  galloped  together. 
"Rough  weather,"  said  Shard,  but  he  sur- 
veyed the  forest  as  he  went  and  the  long  and 
short  of  it  was  he  found  a  place  where  the 
forest  was  less  than  half  a  mile  thick  and  the 
Desperate  Lark  might  get  through:  but 
twenty  trees  must  be  cut.  Shard  marked 
the  trees  himself,  sent  Spanish  Dick  right 
back  to  watch  the  Arabs  and  turned  the 
whole  of  his  crew  on  to  those  twenty  trees. 
It  was  a  frightful  risk,  the  Desperate  Lark 
was  empty,  with  an  enemy  no  more  than 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

ten  knots  astern,  but  it  was  a  moment  for 
bold  measures  and  Shard  took  the  chance  of 
being  left  without  his  ship  in  the  heart  of 
Africa  in  the  hope  of  being  repaid  by  escap- 
ing altogether. 

The  men  worked  all  night  on  those  twenty 
trees,  those  that  had  no  axes  bored  with 
bradawls  and  blasted,  and  then  relieved 
those  that  had. 

Shard  was  indefatigable,  he  went  from 
tree  to  tree  showing  exactly  what  way  every 
one  was  to  fall,  and  what  was  to  be  done 
with  them  when  they  were  down.  Some 
had  to  be  cut  down  because  their  branches 
would  get  in  the  way  of  the  masts,  others 
because  their  trunks  would  be  in  the  way  of 
the  wheels;  in  the  case  of  the  last  the  stumps 
had  to  be  made  smooth  and  low  with  saws 
and  perhaps  a  bit  of  the  trunk  sawn  off  and 
rolled  away.  This  was  the  hardest  work 
they  had.  And  they  were  all  large  trees, 
on  the  other  hand  had  they  been  small  there 
would  have  been  many  more  of  them  and 
they  could  not  have  sailed  in  and  out,  some- 
times for  hundreds  of  yards,  without  cutting 
any  at  all:  and  all  this  Shard  calculated  on 
doing  if  only  there  was  time. 

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The  light  before  dawn  came  and  it  looked 
as  if  they  would  never  do  it  at  all.  And 
then  dawn  came  and  it  was  all  done  but  one 
tree,  the  hard  part  of  the  work  had  all  been 
done  in  the  night  and  a  sort  of  final  rush 
cleared  everything  up  except  that  one  huge 
tree.  And  then  the  cutter  signalled  the 
Arabs  were  moving.  At  dawn  they  had 
prayed,  and  now  they  had  struck  their 
camp.  Shard  at  once  ordered  all  his  men 
to  the  ship  except  ten  whom  he  left  at  the 
tree,  they  had  some  way  to  go  and  the  Arabs 
had  been  moving  some  ten  minutes  before 
they  got  there.  Shard  took  in  the  cutter 
which  wasted  five  minutes,  hoisted  sail 
short-handed  and  that  took  five  minutes 
more,  and  slowly  got  under  way. 

The  wind  was  dropping  still  and  by  the 
time  the  Desperate  Lark  had  come  to  the 
edge  of  that  part  of  the  forest  through  which 
Shard  had  laid  his  course  the  Arabs  were  no 
more  than  five  knots  away.  He  had  sailed 
East  half  a  mile,  which  he  ought  to  have 
done  overnight  so  as  to  be  ready,  but  he 
could  not  spare  time  or  thought  or  men 
away  from  those  twenty  trees.  Then 
Shard  turned  into  the  forest  and  the  Arabs 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

were  dead  astern.  They  hurried  when  they 
saw  the  Desperate  Lark  enter  the  forest. 

"Doing  ten  knots,"  said  Shard  as  he 
watched  them  from  the  deck.  The  Des- 
perate Lark  was  doing  no  more  than  a  knot 
and  a  half  for  the  wind  was  weak  under  the 
lee  of  the  trees.  Yet  all  went  well  for  a 
while.  The  big  tree  had  just  come  down 
some  way  ahead,  and  the  ten  men  were  saw- 
ing bits  off  the  trunk. 

And  then  Shard  saw  a  branch  that  he  had 
not  marked  on  the  chart,  it  would  just  catch 
the  top  of  the  mainmast.  He  anchored  at 
once  and  sent  a  hand  aloft  who  sawed  it  half 
way  through  and  did  the  rest  with  a  pistol, 
and  now  the  Arabs  were  only  three  knots 
astern.  For  a  quarter  of  a  mile  Shard 
steered  them  through  the  forest  till  they 
came  to  the  ten  men  and  that  bad  big  tree, 
another  foot  had  yet  to  come  off  one  corner 
of  the  stump  for  the  wheels  had  to  pass  over 
it.  Shard  turned  all  hands  on  to  the  stump 
and  it  was  then  that  the  Arabs  came  within 
shot.  But  they  had  to  unpack  their  gun. 
And  before  they  had  it  mounted  Shard  was 
away.  If  they  had  charged  things  might 
have  been  different.  When  they  saw  the 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

Desperate  Lark  under  way  again  the  Arabs 
came  on  to  within  three  hundred  yards  and 
there  they  mounted  two  guns.  Shard 
watched  them  along  his  stern  gun  but  would 
not  fire.  They  were  six  hundred  yards 
away  before  the  Arabs  could  fire  and  then 
they  fired  too  soon  and  both  guns  missed. 
And  Shard  and  his  merry  men  saw  clear 
water  only  ten  fathoms  ahead.  Then  Shard 
loaded  his  stern  gun  with  canister  instead 
of  shot  and  at  the  same  moment  the  Arabs 
charged  on  their  camels;  they  came  gal- 
loping down  through  the  forest  waving  long 
lances.  Shard  left  the  steering  to  Smerdrak 
and  stood  by  the  stern  gun,  the  Arabs  were 
within  fifty  yards  and  still  Shard  did  not 
fire;  he  had  most  of  his  men  in  the  stern 
with  muskets  beside  him.  Those  lances 
carried  on  camels  were  altogether  different 
from  swords  in  the  hands  of  horsemen,  they 
could  reach  the  men  on  deck.  The  men 
could  see  the  horrible  barbs  on  the  lance- 
heads,  they  were  almost  at  their  faces  when 
Shard  fired,  and  at  the  same  moment  the 
Desperate  Lark  with  her  dry  and  sun- 
cracked  keel  in  air  on  the  high  bank  of  the 
Niger  fell  forward  like  a  diver.  The  gun 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

went  off  through  the  tree-tops,  a  wave  came 
over  the  bows  and  swept  the  stern,  the 
Desperate  Lark  wriggled  and  righted  her- 
self, she  was  back  in  her  element. 

The  merry  men  looked  at  the  wet  decks 
and  at  their  dripping  clothes.  "Water," 
they  said  almost  wonderingly. 

The  Arabs  followed  a  little  way  through 
the  forest  but  when  they  saw  that  they  had 
to  face  a  broadside  instead  of  one  stern  gun 
and  perceived  that  a  ship  afloat  is  less  vul- 
nerable to  cavalry  even  than  when  on  shore, 
they  abandoned  ideas  of  revenge,  and  com- 
forted themselves  with  a  text  out  of  their 
sacred  book  which  tells  how  in  other  days 
and  other  places  our  enemies  shall  suffer 
even  as  we  desire. 

For  a  thousand  miles  with  the  flow  of  the 
Niger  and  the  help  of  occasional  winds,  the 
Desperate  Lark  moved  seawards.  At  first 
he  sweeps  East  a  little  and  then  Southwards, 
till  you  come  to  Akassa  and  the  open  sea. 

I  will  not  tell  you  how  they  caught  fish 
and  ducks,  raided  a  village  here  and  there 
and  at  last  came  to  Akassa,  for  I  have  said 
much  already  of  Captain  Shard.  Imagine 
them  drawing  nearer  and  nearer  the  sea,  bad 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

men  all,  and  yet  with  a  feeling  for  something 
where  we  feel  for  our  king,  our  country  or 
our  home,  a  feeling  for  something  that 
burned  in  them  not  less  ardently  than  Our 
feelings  in  us,  and  that  something  the  sea. 
Imagine  them  nearing  it  till  sea  birds  ap- 
peared and  they  fancied  they  felt  sea  breezes 
and  all  sang  songs  again  that  they  had  not 
sung  for  weeks.  Imagine  them  heaving  at 
last  on  the  salt  Atlantic  again. 

I  have  said  much  already  of  Captain 
Shard  and  I  fear  lest  I  shall  weary  you,  O 
my  reader,  if  I  tell  you  any  more  of  so  bad  a 
man.  I  too  at  the  top  of  a  tower  all  alone 
am  weary. 

And  yet  it  is  right  that  such  a  tale  should 
be  told.  A  journey  almost  due  South  from 
near  Algiers  to  Akassa  in  a  ship  that  we 
should  call  no  more  than  a  yacht.  Let  it  be 
a  stimulus  to  younger  men. 

GUARANTEE  TO  THE  READER 

Since  writing  down  for  your  benefit,  O 
my  reader,  all  this  long  tale  that  I  heard  in 
the  tavern  by  the  sea  I  have  travelled  in 
Algeria  and  Tunisia  as  well  as  in  the  Desert. 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

Much  that  I  saw  in  those  countries  seems 
to  throw  doubt  on  the  tale  that  the  sailor 
told  me.  To  begin  with  the  Desert  does 
not  come  within  hundreds  of  miles  of  the 
coast  and  there  are  more  mountains  to  cross 
than  you  would  suppose,  the  Atlas  moun- 
tains in  particular.  It  is  just  possible  Shard 
might  have  got  through  by  El  Cantara, 
following  the  camel  road  which  is  many 
centuries  old;  or  he  may  have  gone  by 
Algiers  and  Bou  Saada  and  through  the 
mountain  pass  El  Finita  Dem,  though  that 
is  a  bad  enough  way  for  camels  to  go  (let 
alone  bullocks  with  a  ship)  for  which  reason 
the  Arabs  call  it  Finita  Dem  —  the  Path  of 
Blood. 

I  should  not  have  ventured  to  give  this 
story  the  publicity  of  print  had  the  sailor 
been  sober  when  he  told  it,  for  fear  that  he 
should  have  deceived  you,  0  my  reader;  but 
this  was  never  the  case  with  him  as  I  took 
good  care  to  ensure:  "in  vino  veritas"  is  a 
sound  old  proverb,  and  I  never  had  cause  to 
doubt  his  word  unless  that  proverb  lies. 

If  it  should  prove  that  he  has  deceived 
me,  let  it  pass;  but  if  he  has  been  the  means 
of  deceiving  you  there  are  little  things  about 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

him  that  I  know,  the  common  gossip  of  that 
ancient  tavern  whose  leaded  bottle-glass 
windows  watch  the  sea,  which  I  will  tell  at 
once  to  every  judge  of  my  acquaintance, 
and  it  will  be  a  pretty  race  to  see  which  of 
them  will  hang  him. 

Meanwhile,  0  my  reader,  believe  the 
story,  resting  assured  that  if  you  are  taken 
in  the  thing  shall  be  a  matter  for  the  hang- 
man. 


152 


A  Tale  of 

the  Equator 


e  who  is  Sultan  so  remote  to 
the  East  that  his  dominions 
were  deemed  fabulous  in 
Babylon,  whose  name  is  a  by- 
word for  distance  to-day  in 
the  streets  of  Bagdad,  whose 
capital  bearded  travellers  invoke  by  name 
in  the  gate  at  evening  to  gather  hearers  to 
their  tales  when  the  smoke  of  tobacco  arises, 
dice  rattle  and  taverns  shine;  even  he  in  that 
very  city  made  mandate,  and  said:  "Let 
there  be  brought  hither  all  my  learned  men 
that  they  may  come  before  me  and  rejoice 
my  heart  with  learning." 

Men  ran  and  clarions  sounded,  and  it  was 
so  that  there  came  before  the  Sultan  all  of 
his  learned  men.  And  many  were  found 
wanting.  But  of  those  that  were  able  to 
say  acceptable  things,  ever  after  to  be 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

named  The  Fortunate,  one  said  that  to  the 
South  of  the  Earth  lay  a  Land  —  said  Land 
was  crowned  with  lotus  —  where  it  was 
summer  in  our  winter  days  and  where  it  was 
winter  in  summer. 

And  when  the  Sultan  of  those  most  dis- 
tant lands  knew  that  the  Creator  of  All  had 
contrived  a  device  so  vastly  to  his  delight 
his   merriment   knew   no   bounds.     On  a 
sudden  he  spake  and  said,  and  this  was  the 
gist  of  his  saying,  that  upon  that  line  of 
boundary  or  limit  that  divided  the  North 
from  the  South  a  palace  be  made,  where  in 
the  Northern   courts   should   summer  be, 
while  in  the  South  was  winter;  so  should  he 
move  from  court  to  court  according  to  his 
mood,  and  dally  with  the  summer  in  the 
morning  and  spend  the  noon  with  snow. 
So  the  Sultan's  poets  were  sent  for  and  bade 
to  tell  of  that  city,  foreseeing  its  splendour 
far  away  to  the  South  and  in  the  future  of 
time;  and  some  were  found  fortunate.    And 
of  those  that  were  found  fortunate  and  were 
crowned  with  flowers  none  earned  more 
easily  the  Sultan's  smile  (on  which  long  days 
depended)  than  he  that  foreseeing  the  city 
spake  of  it  thus: 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

"In  seven  years  and  seven  days,  0  Prop 
of  Heaven,  shall  thy  builders  build  it,  thy 
palace  that  is  neither  North  nor  South, 
where  neither  summer  nor  winter  is  sole 
lord  of  the  hours.  White  I  see  it,  very  vast, 
as  a  city,  very  fair,  as  a  woman,  Earth's 
wonder,  with  many  windows,  with  thy 
princesses  peering  out  at  twilight;  yea,  I 
behold  the  bliss  of  the  gold  balconies,  and 
hear  a  rustling  down  long  galleries  and  the 
doves'  coo  upon  its  sculptured  eaves.  O 
Prop  of  Heaven,  would  that  so  fair  a  city 
were  built  by  thine  ancient  sires,  the  chil- 
dren of  the  sun,  that  so  might  all  men  see  it 
even  to-day,  and  not  the  poets  only,  whose 
vision  sees  it  so  far  away  to  the  South  and 
in  the  future  of  time. 

"O  King  of  the  Years,  it  shall  stand  mid- 
most on  that  line  that  divideth  equally  the 
North  from  the  South  and  that  parteth  the 
seasons  asunder  as  with  a  screen.  On  the 
Northern  side  when  summer  is  in  the  North 
thy  silken  guards  shall  pace  by  dazzling 
walls  while  thy  spearsmen  clad  in  furs  go 
round  the  South.  But  at  the  hour  of  noon 
in  the  midmost  day  of  the  year  thy  chamber- 
lain shall  go  down  from  his  high  place  and 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

into  the  midmost  court,  and  men  with 
trumpets  shall  go  down  behind  him,  and  he 
shall  utter  a  great  cry  at  noon,  and  the  men 
with  trumpets  shall  cause  their  trumpets 
to  blare,  and  the  spearsmen  clad  in  furs 
shall  march  to  the  North  and  thy  silken 
guard  shall  take  their  place  in  the  South, 
and  summer  shall  leave  the  North  and  go 
to  the  South,  and  all  the  swallows  shall  rise 
and  follow  after.  And  alone  in  thine  inner 
courts  shall  no  change  be,  for  they  shall  lie 
narrowly  along  that  line  that  parteth  the 
seasons  in  sunder  and  divideth  the  North 
from  the  South,  and  thy  long  gardens  shall 
lie  under  them. 

"And  in  thy  gardens  shall  spring  always 
be,  for  spring  lies  ever  at  the  marge  of  sum- 
mer; and  autumn  also  shall  always  tint  thy 
gardens,  for  autumn  always  flares  at  win- 
ter's edge,  and  those  gardens  shall  lie  apart 
between  winter  and  summer.  And  there 
shall  be  orchards  in  thy  garden,  too,  with  all 
the  burden  of  autumn  on  their  boughs  and 
all  the  blossom  of  spring. 

"Yea,  I  behold  this  palace,  for  we  see 
future  things;  I  see  its  white  wall  shine  in 
the  huge  glare  of  midsummer,  and  the  liz- 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

ards  lying  along  it  motionless  in  the  sun,  and 
men  asleep  in  the  noonday,  and  the  butter- 
flies floating  by,  and  birds  of  radiant  plu- 
mage chasing  marvellous  moths;  far  off  the 
forest  and  great  orchids  glorying  there,  and 
iridescent  insects  dancing  round  in  the  light. 
I  see  the  wall  upon  the  other  side;  the  snow 
has  come  upon  the  battlements,  the  icicles 
have  fringed  them  like  frozen  beards,  a  wild 
wind  blowing  out  of  lonely  places  and  cry- 
ing to  the  cold  fields  as  it  blows  has  sent  the 
snowdrifts  higher  than  the  buttresses;  they 
that  look  out  through  windows  on  that  side 
of  thy  palace  see  the  wild  geese  flying  low 
and  all  the  birds  of  the  winter,  going  by 
swift  in  packs  beat  low  by  the  bitter  wind, 
and  the  clouds  above  them  are  black,  for  it 
is  midwinter  there;  while  in  thine  other 
courts  the  fountains  tinkle,  falling  on  marble 
warmed  by  the  fire  of  the  summer  sun. 

"Such,  0  King  of  the  Years,  shall  thy 
palace  be,  and  its  name  shall  be  Erlath- 
dronion,  Earth's  Wonder;  and  thy  wisdom 
shall  bid  thine  architects  build  at  once,  that 
all  may  see  what  as  yet  the  poets  see  only, 
and  that  prophecy  be  fulfilled." 

And  when  the  poet  ceased  the  Sultan 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

spake,  and  said,  as  all  men  hearkened  with 
bent  heads: 

"It  will  be  unnecessary  for  my  builders 
to  build  this  palace,  Erlathdronion,  Earth's 
Wonder,  for  in  hearing  thee  we  have  drunk 
already  its  pleasures." 

And  the  poet  went  forth  from  the  Pres- 
ence and  dreamed  a  new  thing. 


16$ 


A  Narrow  Escape 


It  was  underground. 

In  that  dank  cavern  down 
I  below  Belgrave  Square  the 
(walls  were  dripping.  But 
[what  was  that  to  the  magi- 
'cian?  It  was  secrecy  that  he 
needed,  not  dryness.  There  he  pondered 
upon  the  trend  of  events,  shaped  destinies 
and  concocted  magical  brews. 

For  the  last  few  years  the  serenity  of  his 
ponderings  had  been  disturbed  by  the  noise 
of  the  motor-bus;  while  to  his  keen  ears 
there  came  the  earthquake-rumble,  far  off, 
of  the  train  in  the  tube,  going  down  Sloane 
Street;  and  when  he  heard  of  the  world 
above  his  head  was  not  to  its  credit. 

He  decided  one  evening  over  his  evil  pipe, 
down  there  in  his  dank  chamber,  that  Lon- 
don had  lived  long  enough,  had  abused  its 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

opportunities,  had  gone  too  far,  in  fine, 
with  its  civilisation.  And  so  he  decided  to 
wreck  it. 

Therefore  he  beckoned  up  his  acolyte 
from  the  weedy  end  of  the  cavern,  and, 
"Bring  me,"  he  said,  "the  heart  of  the  toad 
that  dwelleth  in  Arabia  and  by  the  moun- 
tains of  Bethany."  The  acolyte  slipped 
away  by  the  hidden  door,  leaving  that  grim 
old  man  with  his  frightful  pipe,  and  whither 
he  went  who  knows  but  the  gipsy  people, 
or  by  what  path  he  returned;  but  within  a 
year  he  stood  in  the  cavern  again,  slipping 
secretly  in  by  the  trap  while  the  old  man 
smoked,  and  he  brought  with  him  a  little 
fleshy  thing  that  rotted  in  a  casket  of  pure 
gold. 

"What  is  it?"  the  old  man  croaked. 

"It  is,"  said  the  acolyte,  "the  heart  of 
the  toad  that  dwelt  once  in  Arabia  and  by 
the  mountains  of  Bethany." 

The  old  man's  crooked  fingers  closed  on 
it,  and  he  blessed  the  acolyte  with  his  rasp- 
ing voice  and  claw-like  hand  uplifted;  the 
motor-bus  rumbled  above  on  its  endless 
journey;  far  off  the  train  shook  Sloane 
Street. 

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"Come,"  said  the  old  magician,  "it  is 
time."  And  there  and  then  they  left  the 
weedy  cavern,  the  acolyte  carrying  caul- 
dron, gold  poker  and  all  things  needful,  and 
went  abroad  in  the  light.  And  very  won- 
derful the  old  man  looked  in  his  silks. 

Their  goal  was  the  outskirts  of  London; 
the  old  man  strode  in  front  and  the  acolyte 
ran  behind  him,  and  there  was  something 
magical  in  the  old  man's  stride  alone,  with- 
out his  wonderful  dress,  the  cauldron  and 
wand,  the  hurrying  acolyte  and  the  small 
gold  poker. 

Little  boys  jeered  till  they  caught  the  old 
man's  eye.  So  there  went  on  through  Lon- 
don this  strange  procession  of  two,  too 
swift  for  any  to  follow.  Things  seemed 
worse  up  there  than  they  did  in  the  cavern, 
and  the  further  they  got  on  their  way  to- 
wards London's  outskirts  the  worse  London 
got/  "  It  is  time,"  said  the  old  man, "  surely." 

And  so  they  came  at  last  to  London's 
edge  and  a  small  hill  watching  it  with  a 
mournful  look.  It  was  so  mean  that  the 
acolyte  longed  for  the  cavern,  dank  though 
it  was  and  full  of  terrible  sayings  that  the 
old  man  said  when  he  slept. 

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They  climbed  the  hill  and  put  the  caul- 
dron down,  and  put  there  in  the  necessary 
things,  and  lit  a  fire  of  herbs  that  no  chemist 
will  sell  nor  decent  gardener  grow,  and 
stirred  the  cauldron  with  the  golden  poker. 
The  magician  retired  a  little  apart  and 
muttered,  then  he  strode  back  to  the  caul- 
dron and,  all  being  ready,  suddenly  opened 
the  casket  and  let  the  fleshy  thing  fall  in  to 
boil. 

Then  he  made  spells,  then  he  flung  up  his 
arms;  the  fumes  from  the  cauldron  entering 
in  at  his  mind  he  said  raging  things  that  he 
had  not  known  before  and  runes  that  were 
dreadful  (the  acolyte  screamed);  there  he 
cursed  London  from  fog  to  loam-pit,  from 
zenith  to  the  abyss,  motor-bus,  factory, 
shop,  parliament,  people.  "Let  them  all 
perish,"  he  said,  "and  London  pass  away, 
tram  lines  and  bricks  and  pavement,  the 
usurpers  too  long  of  the  fields,  let  them  all 
pass  away  and  the  wild  hares  come  back, 
blackberry  and  briar-rose." 

"Let  it  pass,"  he  said,  "pass  now,  pass 
utterly." 

In  the  momentary  silence  the  old  man 
coughed,  then  waited  with  eager  eyes;  and 

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the  long  long  hum  of  London  hummed  as  it 
always  has  since  first  the  reed-huts  were  set 
up  by  the  river,  changing  its  note  at  times 
but  always  humming,  louder  now  than  it 
was  in  years  gone  by,  but  humming  night 
and  day  though  its  voice  be  cracked  with 
age;  so  it  hummed  on. 

And  the  old  man  turned  him  round  to  his 
trembling  acolyte  and  terribly  said  as  he 
sank  into  the  earth:  "You  HAVE  NOT 

BROUGHT  ME  THE  HEART  OF  THE  TOAD 
THAT  DWELLETH  IN  ARABIA  NOB  BY  THE 
MOUNTAINS  OF  BETHANY!" 


163 


The  Watch-tower 


sat  one  April  in  Provence  on 
a  small  hill  above  an  ancient 
town  that  Goth  and  Vandal 
as  yet  have  forborne  to 
"bring  up  to  date." 

On  the  hill  was  an  old  worn 
castle  with  a  watch-tower,  and  a  well  with 
narrow  steps  and  water  in  it  still. 

The  watch-tower,  staring  South  with 
neglected  windows,  faced  a  broad  valley 
full  of  the  pleasant  twilight  and  the  hum  of 
evening  things :  it  saw  the  fires  of  wanderers 
blink  from  the  hills,  beyond  them  the  long 
forest  black  with  pines,  one  star  appearing, 
and  darkness  settling  slowly  down  on  Var. 
Sitting  there  listening  to  the  green  frogs 
croaking,  hearing  far  voices  clearly  but  all 
transmuted  by  evening,  watching  the  win- 
dows in  the  little  town  glimmering  one  by 

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one,  and  seeing  the  gloaming  dwindle  sol- 
emnly into  night,  a  great  many  things  fell 
from  mind  that  seem  important  by  day,  and 
evening  in  their  place  planted  strange 
fancies. 

Little  winds  had  arisen  and  were  whis- 
pering to  and  fro,  it  grew  cold,  and  I  was 
about  to  descend  the  hill,  when  I  heard  a 
voice  behind  me  saying,  "Beware,  beware." 

So  much  the  voice  appeared  a  part  of  the 
evening  that  I  did  not  turn  round  at  first; 
it  was  like  voices  that  one  hears  in  sleep  and 
thinks  to  be  of  one's  dream.  And  the  word 
was  monotonously  repeated,  in  French. 

When  I  turned  round  I  saw  an  old  man 
with  a  horn.  He  had  a  white  beard  mar- 
vellously long,  and  still  went  on  saying 
slowly,  "Beware,  beware."  He  had  clearly 
just  come  from  the  tower  by  which  he  stood, 
though  I  had  heard  no  footfall.  Had  a  man 
come  stealthily  upon  me  at  such  an  hour 
and  in  so  lonesome  a  place  I  had  certainly 
felt  surprised;  but  I  saw  almost  at  once  that 
he  was  a  spirit,  and  he  seemed  with  his  un- 
couth horn  and  his  long  white  beard  and 
that  noiseless  step  of  his  to  be  so  native  to 
that  time  and  place  that  I  spoke  to  him  as 

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one  does  to  some  fellow-traveller  who  asks 
you  if  you  mind  having  the  window  up. 

I  asked  him  what  there  was  to  beware  of. 

"Of  what  should  a  town  beware,"  he  said, 
"but  the  Saracens?" 

"Saracens?  "I  said. 

"Yes,  Saracens,  Saracens,"  he  answered 
and  brandished  his  horn. 

"And  who  are  you?"  I  said. 

"I,  I  am  the  spirit  of  the  tower,"  he  said. 

When  I  asked  him  how  he  came  by  so 
human  an  aspect  and  was  so  unlike  the 
material  tower  beside  him  he  told  me  that 
the  lives  of  all  the  watchers  who  had  ever 
held  the  horn  in  the  tower  there  had  gone 
to  make  the  spirit  of  the  tower.  "It  takes 
a  hundred  lives,"  he  said.  "None  hold  the 
horn  of  late  and  men  neglect  the  tower. 
When  the  walls  are  in  ill  repair  the  Saracens 
come:  it  was  ever  so." 

"The  Saracens  don't  come  nowadays," 
I  said. 

But  he  was  gazing  past  me  watching,  and 
did  not  seem  to  heed  me. 

"They  will  run  down  those  hills,"  he  said, 
pointing  away  to  the  South,  "out  of  the 
woods  about  nightfall,  and  I  shall  blow  my 

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horn.  The  people  will  all  come  up  from  the 
town  to  the  tower  again;  but  the  loopholes 
are  in  very  ill  repair." 

"We  never  hear  of  the  Saracens  now,"  I 
said. 

"Hear  of  the  Saracens!"  the  old  spirit 
said.  "Hear  of  the  Saracens!  They  slip 
one  evening  out  of  that  forest,  in  the  long 
white  robes  that  they  wear,  and  I  blow  my 
horn.  That  is  the  first  that  anyone  ever 
hears  of  the  Saracens." 

"I  mean,"  I  said,  "that  they  never  come 
at  all.  They  cannot  come  and  men  fear 
other  things."  For  I  thought  the  old  spirit 
might  rest  if  he  knew  that  the  Saracens  can 
never  come  again.  But  he  said,  "There  is 
nothing  in  the  world  to  fear  but  the  Sara- 
cens. Nothing  else  matters.  How  can  men 
fear  other  things?" 

Then  I  explained,  so  that  he  might  have 
rest,  and  told  him  how  all  Europe,  and  in 
particular  France,  had  terrible  engines  of 
war,  both  on  land  and  sea;  and  how  the 
Saracens  had  not  these  terrible  engines 
either  on  sea  or  land,  and  so  could  by  no 
means  cross  the  Mediterranean  or  escape 
destruction  on  shore  even  though  they 

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should  come  there.  I  alluded  to  the  Euro- 
pean railways  that  could  move  armies  night 
and  day  faster  than  horses  could  gallop. 
And  when  as  well  as  I  could  I  had  explained 
all,  he  answered," In  time  all  these  things 
pass  away  and  then  there  will  still  be  the 
Saracens." 

And  then  I  said,  "There  has  not  been  a 
Saracen  either  in  France  or  Spain  for  over 
four  hundred  years." 

And  he  said,  "The  Saracens!  You  do  not 
know  their  cunning.  That  was  ever  the 
way  of  the  Saracens.  They  do  not  come 
for  a  while,  no  not  they,  for  a  long  while, 
and  then  one  day  they  come." 

And  peering  southwards,  but  not  seeing 
clearly  because  of  the  rising  mist,  he  silently 
moved  to  his  tower  and  up  its  broken  steps. 


168 


How  Plash- Goo 
Came  to  the  Land 
of  None 's  Desire 


n  a  thatched  cottage  of  enor- 
mous size,  so  vast  that  we 
might   consider   it   a   palace, 
but  only  a  cottage  in  the  style 
of  its  building,  its  timbers  and 
the  nature  of  its  interior,  there 
lived  Plash-Goo. 

Plash-Goo  was  of  the  children  of  the 
giants,  whose  sire  was  Uph.  And  the  lin- 
eage of  Uph  had  dwindled  in  bulk  for  the 
last  five  hundred  years,  till  the  giants  were 
now  no  more  than  fifteen  foot  high;  but 
Uph  ate  elephants  which  he  caught  with  his 
hands. 

Now  on  the  tops  of  the  mountains  above 
the  house  of  Plash-Goo,  for  Plash-Goo  lived 
in  the  plains,  there  dwelt  the  dwarf  whose 
name  was  Lrippity-Kang. 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

And  the  dwarf  used  to  walk  at  evening  on 
the  edge  of  the  tops  of  the  mountains,  and 
would  walk  up  and  down  along  it,  and  was 
squat  and  ugly  and  hairy,  and  was  plainly 
seen  of  Plash-Goo. 

And  for  many  weeks  the  giant  had  suf- 
fered the  sight  of  him,  but  at  length  grew 
irked  at  the  sight  (as  men  are  by  little  things) , 
and  could  not  sleep  of  a  night  and  lost  his 
taste  for  pigs.  And  at  last  there  came  the 
day,  as  anyone  might  have  known,  when 
Plash-Goo  shouldered  his  club  and  went 
up  to  look  for  the  dwarf. 

And  the  dwarf  though  briefly  squat  was 
broader  than  may  be  dreamed,  beyond  all 
breadth  of  man,  and  stronger  than  men  may 
know;  strength  in  its  very  essence  dwelt  in 
that  little  frame,  as  a  spark  in  the  heart  of  a 
flint:  but  to  Plash-Goo  he  was  no  more  than 
mis-shapen,  bearded  and  squat,  a  thing  that 
dared  to  defy  all  natural  laws  by  being  more 
broad  than  long. 

When  Plash-Goo  came  to  the  mountain 
he  cast  his  chimahalk  down  (for  so  he  named 
the  club  of  his  heart's  desire)  lest  the  dwarf 
should  defy  him  with  nimbleness;  and 
stepped  towards  Lrippity-Kang  with  grip- 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

ping  hands,  who  stopped  in  his  mountain- 
ous walk  without  a  word,  and  swung  round 
his  hideous  breadth  to  confront  Plash-Goo. 
Already  then  Plash-Goo  in  the  deeps  of 
his  mind  had  seen  himself  seize  the  dwarf 
in  one  large  hand  and  hurl  him  with  his 
beard  and  his  hated  breadth  sheer  down  the 
precipice  that  dropped  away  from  that  very 
place  to  the  land  of  None's  Desire.  Yet  it 
was  otherwise  that  Fate  would  have  it. 
For  the  dwarf  parried  with  his  little  arms 
the  grip  of  those  monstrous  hands,  and  grad- 
ually working  along  the  enormous  limbs 
came  at  length  to  the  giant's  body  where  by 
dwarfish  cunning  he  obtained  a  grip;  and 
turning  Plash-Goo  about,  as  a  spider  does 
some  great  fly,  till  his  little  grip  was  suit- 
able to  his  purpose,  he  suddenly  lifted  the 
giant  over  his  head.  Slowly  at  first,  by  the 
edge  of  that  precipice  whose  base  sheer  dis- 
tance hid,  he  swung  his  giant  victim  round 
his  head,  but  soon  faster  and  faster;  and  at 
last  when  Plash-Goo  was  streaming  round 
the  hated  breadth  of  the  dwarf  and  the  no 
less  hated  beard  was  flapping  in  the  wind, 
Lrippity-Kang  let  go.  Plash-Goo  shot  over 
the  edge  and  for  some  way  further,  out 

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towards  Space,  like  a  stone;  then  he  began 
to  fall.  It  was  long  before  he  believed  and 
truly  knew  that  this  was  really  he  that  fell 
from  this  mountain,  for  we  do  not  associate 
such  dooms  with  ourselves;  but  when  he  had 
fallen  for  some  while  through  the  evening 
and  saw  below  him,  where  there  had  been 
nothing  to  see,  or  began  to  see,  the  glimmer 
of  tiny  fields,  then  his  optimism  departed; 
till  later  on  when  the  fields  were  greener  and 
larger  he  saw  that  this  was  indeed  (and 
growing  now  terribly  nearer)  that  very  land 
to  which  he  had  destined  the  dwarf. 

At  last  he  saw  it  unmistakable,  close,  with 
its  grim  houses  and  its  dreadful  ways,  and 
its  green  fields  shining  in  the  light  of  the 
evening.  His  cloak  was  streaming  from 
him  in  whistling  shreds. 

So  Plash-Goo  came  to  the  Land  of  None's 
Desire. 


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The  Three 

Sailors '  Gamble 


itting  some  years  ago  in  the 
ancient  tavern  at  Over,  one 
afternoon  in  Spring,  I  was 
waiting,  as  was  my  custom, 
for  something  strange  to  hap- 
pen. In  this  I  was  not  always 
disappointed  for  the  very  curious  leaded 
panes  of  that  tavern,  facing  the  sea,  let  a 
light  into  the  low-ceilinged  room  so  myste- 
rious, particularly  at  evening,  that  it  some- 
how seemed  to  affect  the  events  within.  Be 
that  as  it  may,  I  have  seen  strange  things 
in  that  tavern  and  heard  stranger  things 
told. 

And  as  I  sat  there  three  sailors  entered 
the  tavern,  just  back,  as  they  said,  from  sea, 
and  come  with  sunburned  skins  from  a  very 
long  voyage  to  the  South;  and  one  of  them 
had  a  board  and  chessmen  under  his  arm, 

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and  they  were  complaining  that  they  could 
find  no  one  who  knew  how  to  play  chess. 
This  was  the  year  that  the  Tournament  was 
in  England.  And  a  little  dark  man  at  a 
table  in  a  corner  of  the  room,  drinking  sugar 
and  water,  asked  them  why  they  wished  to 
play  chess;  and  they  said  that  they  would 
play  any  man  for  a  pound.  They  opened 
their  box  of  chessmen  then,  a  cheap  and 
nasty  set,  and  the  man  refused  to  play  with 
such  uncouth  pieces,  and  the  sailors  sug- 
gested that  perhaps  he  could  find  better 
ones;  and  in  the  end  he  went  round  to  his 
lodgings  near  by  and  brought  his  own,  and 
then  they  sat  down  to  play  for  a  pound  a 
side.  It  was  a  consultation  game  on  the 
part  of  the  sailors,  they  said  all  three  must 
play. 

Well,  the  little  dark  man  turned  out  to 
be  Stavlokratz. 

Of  course  he  was  fabulously  poor,  and  the 
sovereign  meant  more  to  him  than  it  did  to 
the  sailors,  but  he  didn't  seem  keen  to  play, 
it  was  the  sailors  that  insisted;  he  had  made 
the  badness  of  the  sailors'  chessmen  an 
excuse  for  not  playing  at  all,  but  the  sailors 
had  over-ruled  that,  and  then  be  told  them 

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straight  out  who  he  was,  and  the  sailors  had 
never  heard  of  Stavlokratz. 

Well,  no  more  was  said  after  that.  Stav- 
lokratz said  no  more,  either  because  he  did 
not  wish  to  boast  or  because  he  was  huffed 
that  they  did  not  know  who  he  was.  And 
I  saw  no  reason  to  enlighten  the  sailors 
about  him;  if  he  took  their  pound  they  had 
brought  it  on  themselves,  and  my  boundless 
admiration  for  his  genius  made  me  feel  that 
he  deserved  whatever  might  come  his  way. 
He  had  not  asked  to  play,  they  had  named 
the  stakes,  he  had  warned  them,  and  gave 
them  first  move;  there  was  nothing  unfair 
about  Stavlokratz. 

I  had  never  seen  Stavlokratz  before,  but 
I  had  played  over  nearly  every  one  of  his 
games  in  the  World  Championship  for  the 
last  three  or  four  years;  he  was  always  of 
course  the  model  chosen  by  students.  Only 
young  chess-players  can  appreciate  my 
delight  at  seeing  him  play  first  hand. 

Well,  the  sailors  used  to  lower  their  heads 
almost  as  low  as  the  table  and  mutter  to- 
gether before  every  move,  but  they  mut- 
tered so  low  that  you  could  not  hear  what 
they  planned. 

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They  lost  three  pawns  almost  straight  off, 
then  a  knight,  and  shortly  after  a  bishop; 
they  were  playing  in  fact  the  famous  Three 
Sailors'  Gambit. 

Stavlokratz  was  playing  with  the  easy 
confidence  that  they  say  was  usual  with  him, 
when  suddenly  at  about  the  thirteenth  move 
I  saw  him  look  surprised;  he  leaned  forward 
and  looked  at  the  board  and  then  at  the  sail- 
ors, but  he  learned  nothing  from  their  vacant 
faces;  he  looked  back  at  the  board  again. 

He  moved  more  deliberately  after  that; 
the  sailors  lost  two  more  pawns,  Stavlokratz 
had  lost  nothing  as  yet.  He  looked  at  me 
I  thought  almost  irritably,  as  though  some- 
thing would  happen  that  he  wished  I  was 
not  there  to  see.  I  believed  at  first  he  had 
qualms  about  taking  the  sailors'  pound, 
until  it  dawned  on  me  that  he  might  lose  the 
game;  I  saw  that  possibility  in  his  face, 
not  on  the  board,  for  the  game  had  become 
almost  incomprehensible  to  me.  I  cannot 
describe  my  astonishment.  And  a  few 
moves  later  Stavlokratz  resigned. 

The  sailors  showed  no  more  elation  than 
if  they  had  won  some  game  with  greasy 
cards,  playing  amongst  themselves. 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

Stavlokratz  asked  them  where  they  got 
their  opening.  "  We  kind  of  thought  of  it," 
said  one.  "It  just  come  into  our  heads 
like/'  said  another.  He  asked  them  ques- 
tions about  the  ports  they  had  touched  at. 
He  evidently  thought  as  I  did  myself  that 
they  had  learned  their  extraordinary  gam- 
bit, perhaps  in  some  old  dependancy  of 
Spain,  from  some  young  master  of  chess 
whose  fame  had  not  reached  Europe.  He 
was  very  eager  to  find  who  this  man  could 
be,  for  neither  of  us  imagined  that  those 
sailors  had  invented  it,  nor  would  anyone 
who  had  seen  them.  But  he  got  no  infor- 
mation from  the  sailors. 

Stavlokratz  could  very  ill  afford  the  loss 
of  a  pound.  He  offered  to  play  them  again 
for  the  same  stakes.  The  sailors  began  to 
set  up  the  white  pieces.  Stavlokratz 
pointed  out  that  it  was  his  turn  for  first 
move.  The  sailors  agreed  but  continued  to 
set  up  the  white  pieces  and  sat  with  the 
white  before  them  waiting  for  him  to  move. 
It  was  a  trivial  incident,  but  it  revealed  to 
Stavlokratz  and  myself  that  none  of  these 
sailors  was  aware  that  white  always  moves 
first. 

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Stavlokratz  played  on  them  his  own  open- 
ing, reasoning  of  course  that  as  they  had 
never  heard  of  Stavlokratz  they  would  not 
know  of  his  opening;  and  with  probably  a 
very  good  hope  of  getting  back  his  pound 
he  played  the  fifth  variation  with  its  tricky 
seventh  move,  at  least  so  he  intended,  but 
it  turned  to  a  variation  unknown  to  the 
students  of  Stavlokratz. 

Throughout  this  game  I  watched  the 
sailors  closely,  and  I  became  sure,  as  only 
an  attentive  watcher  can  be,  that  the  one 
on  their  left,  Jim  Bunion,  did  not  even  know 
the  moves. 

When  I  had  made  up  my  mind  about  this 
I  watched  only  the  other  two,  Adam  Bailey 
and  Bill  Sloggs,  trying  to  make  out  which 
was  the  master  mind;  and  for  a  long  while 
I  could  not.  And  then  I  heard  Adam 
Bailey  mutter  six  words,  the  only  words  I 
heard  throughout  the  game,  of  all  their  con- 
sultations, "No,  him  with  the  horse's  head." 
And  I  decided  that  Adam  Bailey  did  not 
know  what  a  knight  was,  though  of  course 
he  might  have  been  explaining  things  to 
Bill  Sloggs,  but  it  did  not  sound  like  that; 
so  that  left  BiU  Sloggs.  I  watched  Bill 

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Sloggs  after  that  with  a  certain  wonder;  he 
was  no  more  intellectual  than  the  others  to 
look  at,  though  rather  more  forceful  per- 
haps. Poor  old  Stavlokratz  was  beaten 
again. 

Well,  in  the  end  I  paid  for  Stavlokratz, 
and  tried  to  get  a  game  with  Bill  Sloggs 
alone,  but  this  he  would  not  agree  to,  it 
must  be  all  three  or  none:  and  then  I  went 
back  with  Stavlokratz  to  his  lodgings.  He 
very  kindly  gave  me  a  game:  of  course  it  did 
not  last  long  but  I  am  more  proud  of  having 
been  beaten  by  Stavlokratz  than  of  any 
game  that  I  have  ever  won.  And  then  we 
talked  for  an  hour  about  the  sailors,  and 
neither  of  us  could  make  head  or  tale  of  them. 
I  told  him  what  I  had  noticed  about  Jim 
Bunion  and  Adam  Bailey,  and  he  agreed 
with  me  that  Bill  Sloggs  was  the  man, 
though  as  to  how  he  had  come  by  that  gam- 
bit or  that  variation  of  Stavlokratz's  own 
opening  he  had  no  theory. 

I  had  the  sailors'  address  which  was  that 
tavern  as  much  as  anywhere,  and  they 
were  to  be  there  all  that  evening.  As  eve- 
ning drew  in  I  went  back  to  the  tavern,  and 
found  there  still  the  three  sailors.  And  I 

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offered  Bill  Sloggs  two  pounds  for  a  game 
with  him  alone  and  he  refused,  but  in  the 
end  he  played  me  for  a  drink.  And  then  I 
found  that  he  had  not  heard  of  the  "en 
passant"  rule,  and  believed  that  the  fact  of 
checking  the  king  prevented  him  from 
castling,  and  did  not  know  that  a  player  can 
have  two  or  more  queens  on  the  board  at  the 
same  time  if  he  queens  his  pawns,  or  that  a 
pawn  could  ever  become  a  knight;  and  he 
made  as  many  of  the  stock  mistakes  as  he 
had  time  for  in  a  short  game,  which  I  won. 
I  thought  that  I  should  have  got  at  the 
secret  then,  but  his  mates  who  had  sat 
scowling  all  the  wrhile  in  the  corner  came  up 
and  interfered.  It  was  a  breach  of  their 
compact  apparently  for  one  to  play  chess 
by  himself,  at  any  rate  they  seemed  angry. 
So  I  left  the  tavern  then  and  came  back 
again  next  day,  and  the  next  day  and  the 
day  after,  and  often  saw  the  three  sailors, 
but  none  were  in  a  communicative  mood. 
I  had  got  Stavlokratz  to  keep  away,  and 
they  could  get  no  one  to  play  chess  with  at 
a  pound  a  side,  and  I  would  not  play  with 
them  unless  they  told  me  the  secret. 

And  then  one  evening  I  found  Jim  Bunion 

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drunk,  yet  not  so  drunk  as  he  wished,  for 
the  two  pounds  were  spent;  and  I  gave  him 
very  nearly  a  tumbler  of  whiskey,  or  what 
passed  for  whiskey  in  that  tavern  at  Over, 
and  he  told  me  the  secret  at  once.  I  had 
given  the  others  some  whiskey  to  keep  them 
quiet,  and  later  on  in  the  evening  they  must 
have  gone  out,  but  Jim  Bunion  stayed  with 
me  by  a  little  table  leaning  across  it  and 
talking  low,  right  into  my  face,  his  breath 
smelling  all  the  while  of  what  passed  for 
whiskey. 

The  wind  was  blowing  outside  as  it  does 
on  bad  nights  in  November,  coming  up  with 
moans  from  the  South,  towards  which  the 
tavern  faced  with  all  its  leaded  panes,  so 
that  none  but  I  was  able  to  hear  his  voice  as 
Jim  Bunion  gave  up  his  secret. 

They  had  sailed  for  years,  he  told  me, 
with  Bill  Snyth;  and  on  their  last  voyage 
home  Bill  Snyth  had  died.  And  he  was 
buried  at  sea.  Just  the  other  side  of  the 
line  they  buried  him,  and  his  pals  divided 
his  kit,  and  these  three  got  his  crystal  that 
only  they  knew  he  had,  which  Bill  got  one 
night  in  Cuba.  They  played  chess  with 
the  crystal. 

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And  he  was  going  on  to  tell  me  about  that 
night  in  Cuba  when  Bill  had  bought  the 
crystal  from  the  stranger,  how  some  folks 
might  think  that  they  had  seen  thunder- 
storms, but  let  them  go  and  listen  to  that 
one  that  thundered  in  Cuba  when  Bill  was 
buying  his  crystal  and  they'd  find  that  they 
didn't  know  what  thunder  was.  But  then 
I  interrupted  him,  unfortunately  perhaps, 
for  it  broke  the  thread  of  his  tale  and  set 
him  rambling  a  while,  and  cursing  other 
people  and  talking  of  other  lands,  China,  Port 
Said  and  Spain :  but  I  brought  him  back  to 
Cuba  agiun  in  the  end.  I  asked  him  how 
they  could  play  chess  with  a  crystal;  and 
he  said  that  you  looked  at  the  board  and 
looked  at  the  crystal  and  there  was  the  game 
in  the  crystal  the  same  as  it  was  on  the 
board,  with  all  the  odd  little  pieces  looking 
just  the  same  though  smaller,  horses'  heads 
and  whatnots;  and  as  soon  as  the  other  man 
moved  the  move  came  out  in  the  crystal, 
and  then  your  move  appeared  after  it,  and 
all  you  had  to  do  was  to  make  it  on  the 
board.  If  you  didn't  make  the  move  that 
you  saw  in  the  crystal  things  got  very  bad 
in  it,  everything  horribly  mixed  and  moving 

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about  rapidly,  and  scowling  and  making  the 
same  move  over  and  over  again,  and  the 
crystal  getting  cloudier  and  cloudier;  it  was 
best  to  take  one's  eyes  away  from  it  then, 
or  one  dreamt  about  it  afterwards,  and  the 
foul  little  pieces  came  and  cursed  you  in 
your  sleep  and  moved  about  all  night  with 
their  crooked  moves. 

I  thought  then  that,  drunk  though  he  was, 
he  was  not  telling  the  truth,  and  I  promised 
to  show  him  to  people  who  played  chess  all 
their  lives  so  that  he  and  his  mates  could 
get  a  pound  whenever  they  liked,  and  I 
promised  not  to  reveal  his  secret  even  to 
Stavlokratz,  if  only  he  would  tell  me  all  the 
truth;  and  this  promise  I  have  kept  till  long 
after  the  three  sailors  have  lost  their  secret. 
I  told  him  straight  out  that  I  did  not  believe 
in  the  crystal.  Well,  Jim  Bunion  leaned 
forward  then,  even  further  across  the  table, 
and  swore  he  had  seen  the  man  from  whom 
Bill  had  bought  the  crystal  and  that  he  was 
one  to  whom  anything  was  possible.  To 
begin  with  his  hair  was  villainously  dark, 
and  his  features  were  unmistakable  even 
down  there  in  the  South,  and  he  could  play 
chess  with  his  eyes  shut,  and  even  then  he 

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could  beat  anyone  in  Cuba.  But  ther  was 
more  than  this,  there  was  the  bargain  'he 
made  with  Bill  that  told  one  who  he  was. 
He  sold  that  crystal  for  Bill  Snyth's  soul. 

Jim  Bunion  leaning  over  the  table  with 
his  breath  in  my  face  nodded  his  head  sev- 
eral times  and  was  silent. 

I  began  to  question  him  then.  Did  they 
play  chess  as  far  away  as  Cuba?  He  said 
they  all  did.  Was  it  conceivable  that  any 
man  would  make  such  a  bargain  as  Snyth 
made?  Wasn't  the  trick  well  known? 
Wasn't  it  in  hundreds  of  books?  And  if 
he  couldn't  read  books  mustn't  he  have 
heard  from  sailors  that  that  is  the  Devil's 
commonest  dodge  to  get  souls  from  silly 
people? 

Jim  Bunion  had  leant  back  in  his  own 
chair  quietly  smiling  at  my  questions  but 
when  I  mentioned  silly  people  he  leaned 
forward  again,  and  thrust  his  face  close  to 
mine  and  asked  me  several  times  if  I  called 
Bill  Snyth  silly.  It  seemed  that  these  three 
sailors  thought  a  great  deal  of  Bill  Snyth 
and  it  made  Jim  Bunion  angry  to  hear  any- 
thing said  against  him.  I  hastened  to  say 
that  the  bargain  seemed  silly  though  not  of 


The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

course  the  man  who  made  it;  for  the  sailor 
was  almost  threatening,  and  no  wonder  for 
the  whiskey  in  that  dim  tavern  would  mad- 
den a  nun. 

When  I  said  that  the  bargain  seemed 
silly  he  smiled  again,  and  then  he  thundered 
his  fist  down  on  the  table  and  said  that  no 
one  had  ever  yet  got  the  better  of  Bill  Snyth 
and  that  that  was  the  worst  bargain  for 
himself  that  the  Devil  ever  made,  and  that 
from  all  he  had  read  or  heard  of  the  Devil 
he  had  never  been  so  badly  had  before  as 
the  night  when  he  met  Bill  Snyth  at  the  inn 
in  the  thunderstorm  in  Cuba,  for  Bill  Snyth 
already  had  the  damnedest  soul  at  sea; 
Bill  was  a  good  fellow,  but  his  soul  was 
damned  right  enough,  so  he  got  the  crystal 
for  nothing. 

Yes,  he  was  there  and  saw  it  all  himself, 
Bill  Snyth  in  the  Spanish  inn  and  the  can- 
dles flaring,  and  the  Devil  walking  in  out  of 
the  rain,  and  then  the  bargain  between 
those  two  old  hands,  and  the  Devil  going 
out  into  the  lightning,  and  the  thunder- 
storm raging  on,  and  Bill  Snyth  sitting 
chuckling  to  himself  between  the  bursts  of 
the  thunder. 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

But  I  had  more  questions  to  ask  and  inter- 
rupted this  reminiscence.  Why  did  they 
all  three  always  play  together?  And  a  look 
of  something  like  fear  came  over  Jim 
Bunion's  face;  and  at  first  he  would  not 
speak.  And  then  he  said  to  me  that  it  was 
like  this;  they  had  not  paid  for  that  crystal, 
but  got  it  as  their  share  of  Jim  Bunion's  kit. 
If  they  had  paid  for  it  or  given  something 
in  exchange  to  Bill  Snyth  that  would  have 
been  all  right,  but  they  couldn't  do  that 
now  because  Bill  was  dead,  and  they  were 
not  sure  if  the  old  bargain  might  not  hold 
good.  And  Hell  must  be  a  large  and  lonely 
place,  and  to  go  there  alone  must  be  bad, 
and  so  the  three  agreed  that  they  would  all 
stick  together,  and  use  the  crystal  all  three 
or  not  at  all,  unless  one  died,  and  then  the 
two  would  use  it  and  the  one  that  was  gone 
would  wait  for  them.  And  the  last  of  the 
three  to  go  would  bring  the  crystal  with 
him,  or  maybe  the  crystal  would  bring  him. 
They  didn't  think,  he  said,  they  were  the 
kind  of  men  for  Heaven,  and  he  hoped  they 
knew  their  place  better  than  that,  but  they 
didn't  fancy  the  notion  of  Hell  alone,  if  Hell 
it  had  to  be.  It  was  all  right  for  Bill  Snyth, 
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he  was  afraid  of  nothing.  He  had  known 
perhaps  five  men  that  were  not  afraid  of 
death,  but  Bill  Snyth  was  not  afraid  of  Hell. 
He  died  with  a  smile  on  his  face  like  a  child 
in  its  sleep;  it  was  drink  killed  poor  Bill 
Snyth. 

This  was  why  I  had  beaten  Bill  Sloggs; 
Sloggs  had  the  crystal  on  him  while  we 
played,  but  would  not  use  it;  these  sailors 
seemed  to  fear  loneliness  as  some  people 
fear  being  hurt;  he  was  the  only  one  of  the 
three  who  could  play  chess  at  all,  he  had 
learnt  it  in  order  to  be  able  to  answer  ques- 
tions and  keep  up  their  pretence,  but  he  had 
learnt  it  badly,  as  I  found.  I  never  saw  the 
crystal,  they  never  showed  it  to  anyone; 
but  Jim  Bunion  told  me  that  night  that  it 
was  about  the  size  that  the  thick  end  of  a 
hen's  egg  would  be  if  it  were  round.  And 
then  he  fell  asleep. 

There  were  many  more  questions  that  I 
would  have  asked  him  but  I  could  not  wake 
him  up.  I  even  pulled  the  table  away  so 
that  he  fell  to  the  floor,  but  he  slept  on,  and 
all  the  tavern  was  dark  but  for  one  candle 
burning;  and  it  was  then  that  I  noticed  for 
the  first  time  that  the  other  two  sailors  had 

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gone,  no  one  remained,  at  all  but  Jim  Bunion 
and  I  and  the  sinister  barman  of  that 
curious  inn,  and  he  too  was  asleep. 

When  I  saw  that  it  was  impossible  to 
wake  the  sailor  I  went  out  into  the  night. 
Next  day  Jim  Bunion  would  talk  of  it  no 
more;  and  when  I  went  back  to  Stavlokratz 
I  found  him  already  putting  on  paper  his 
theory  about  the  sailors,  which  became 
accepted  by  chess-players,  that  one  of  them 
had  been  taught  their  curious  gambit  and 
the  other  two  between  them  had  learnt  all 
the  defensive  openings  as  well  as  general 
play.  Though  who  taught  them  no  one 
could  say,  in  spite  of  enquiries  made  after- 
wards all  along  the  Southern  Pacific. 

I  never  learnt  any  more  details  from  any 
of  the  three  sailors,  they  were  always  too 
drunk  to  speak  or  else  not  drunk  enough  to 
be  communicative.  I  seem  just  to  have 
taken  Jim  Bunion  at  the  flood.  But  I  kept 
my  promise,  it  was  I  that  introduced  them 
to  the  Tournament,  and  a  pretty  mess  they 
made  of  established  reputations.  And  so 
they  kept  on  for  months,  never  losing  a 
game  and  always  playing  for  their  pound  a 
side.  I  used  to  follow  them  wherever  they 

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went  merely  to  watch  their  play.  They 
were  more  marvellous  than  Stavlokratz 
even  in  his  youth. 

But  then  they  took  to  liberties  such  as 
giving  their  queen  when  playing  first-class 
players.  And  in  the  end  one  day  when  all 
three  were  drunk  they  played  the  best 
player  in  England  with  only  a  row  of  pawns. 
They  won  the  game  all  right.  But  the  ball 
broke  to  pieces.  I  never  smelt  such  a 
stench  in  all  my  life. 

The  three  sailors  took  it  stoically  enough, 
they  signed  on  to  different  ships  and  went 
back  again  to  the  sea,  and  the  world  of 
chess  lost  sight,  for  ever  I  trust,  of  the  most 
remarkable  players  it  ever  knew,  who  would 
have  altogether  spoiled  the  game. 


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The  Exile's  Club 


t  was  an  evening  party;  and 
something  someone  had  said 
to  me  had  started  me  talking 
about  a  subject  that  to  me  is 
full  of  fascination,  the  subject 
of  old  religions,  forsaken  gods. 
The  truth  (for  all  religions  have  some  of  it), 
the  wisdom,  the  beauty,  of  the  religions  of 
countries  to  which  I  travel  have  not  the 
same  appeal  for  me;  for  one  only  notices  in 
them  their  tyranny  and  intolerance  and  the 
abject  servitude  that  they  claim  from 
thought;  but  when  a  dynasty  has  been 
dethroned  in  heaven  and  goes  forgotten 
and  outcast  even  among  men,  one's  eyes 
no  longer  dazzled  by  its  power  find  some- 
thing very  wistful  in  the  faces  of  fallen  gods 
suppliant  to  be  remembered,  something 
almost  tearfully  beautiful,  like  a  long  warm 

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summer  twilight  fading  gently  away  after 
some  day  memorable  in  the  story  of  earthly 
wars.  Between  what  Zeus,  for  instance,  has 
been  once  and  the  half-remembered  tale 
he  is  to-day  there  lies  a  space  so  great  that 
there  is  no  change  of  fortune  known  to 
man  whereby  we  may  measure  the  height 
down  which  he  has  fallen.  And  it  is  the 
same  with  many  another  god  at  whom  once 
the  ages  trembled  and  the  twentieth  cen- 
tury treats  as  an  old  wives'  tale.  The 
fortitude  that  such  a  fall  demands  is  surely 
more  than  human. 

Some  such  things  as  these  I  was  saying, 
and  being  upon  a  subject  that  much 
attracts  me  I  possibly  spoke  too  loudly, 
certainly  I  was  not  aware  that  standing 
close  behind  me  was  no  less  a  person  than 
the  ex-King  of  Eritivaria,  the  thirty  islands 
of  the  East,  or  I  would  have  moderated 
my  voice  and  moved  away  a  little  to  give  him 
more  room.  I  was  not  aware  of  his  presence 
until  his  satellite,  one  who  had  fallen  with 
him  into  exile  but  still  revolved  about  him, 
told  me  that  his  master  desired  to  know 
me;  and  so  to  my  surprise  I  was  presented 
though  neither  of  them  even  knew  my 

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The  Last  Bool^  °f  Wonder 

name.  And  that  was  how  I  came  to  be 
invited  by  the  ex-King  to  dine  at  his  club. 

At  the  time  I  could  only  account  for  his 
wishing  to  know  me  by  supposing  that  he 
found  in  his  own  exiled  condition  some 
likeness  to  the  fallen  fortunes  of  the  gods 
of  whom  I  talked  unwitting  of  his  presence; 
but  now  I  know  that  it  was  not  of  himself 
he  was  thinking  when  he  asked  me  to  dine 
at  that  club. 

The  club  would  have  been  the  most 
imposing  building  in  any  street  in  London, 
but  in  that  obscure  mean  quarter  of  London 
in  which  they  had  built  it  it  appeared 
unduly  enormous.  Lifting  right  up  above 
those  grotesque  houses  and  built  in  that 
Greek  style  that  we  call  Georgian,  there 
was  something  Olympian  about  it.  To 
my  host  an  unfashionable  street  could 
have  meant  nothing,  through  all  his  youth 
wherever  he  had  gone  had  become  fashion- 
able the  moment  he  went  there;  words 
like  the  East  End  could  have  had  no  mean- 
ing to  him. 

Whoever  built  that  house  had  enormous 
wealth  and  cared  nothing  for  fashion, 
perhaps  despised  it.  As  I  stood  gazing  at 

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the  magnificent  upper  windows  draped 
with  great  curtains,  indistinct  in  the  evening, 
on  which  huge  shadows  flickered  my  host 
attracted  my  attention  from  the  doorway, 
and  so  I  went  in  and  met  for  the  second  time 
the  ex-King  of  Eritivaria. 

In  front  of  us  a  stairway  of  rare  marble 
led  upwards,  he  took  me  through  a  side-door 
and  downstairs  and  we  came  to  a  banquet- 
ing-hall  of  great  magnificence.  A  long 
table  ran  up  the  middle  of  it,  laid  for  quite 
twenty  people,  and  I  noticed  the  peculi- 
arity that  instead  of  chairs  there  were 
thrones  for  everyone  except  me,  who  was 
the  only  guest  and  for  whom  there  was  an 
ordinary  chair.  My  host  explained  to  me 
when  we  all  sat  down  that  everyone  who 
belonged  to  that  club  was  by  rights  a  king. 

In  fact  none  was  permitted,  he  told  me, 
to  belong  to  the  club  until  his  claim  to  a 
kingdom  made  out  in  writing  had  been 
examined  and  allowed  by  those  whose 
duty  it  was.  The  whim  of  a  populace 
or  the  candidate's  own  misrule  were  never 
considered  by  the  investigators,  nothing 
counted  with  them  but  heredity  and  law- 
ful descent  from  kings,  all  else  was  ignored. 

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At  that  table  there  were  those  who  had 
once  reigned  themselves,  others  lawfully 
claimed  descent  from  kings  that  the  world 
had  forgotten,  the  kingdoms  claimed  by 
some  had  even  changed  their  names. 
Hatzgurh,  the  mountain  kingdom,  is  almost 
regarded  as  mythical. 

I  have  seldom  seen  greater  splendour  than 
that  long  hall  provided  below  the  level  of  the 
street.  No  doubt  by  day  it  was  a  little 
sombre,  as  all  basements  are,  but  at  night 
with  its  great  crystal  chandeliers,  and  the 
glitter  of  heirlooms  that  had  gone  into  exile, 
it  surpassed  the  splendour  of  palaces  that 
have  only  one  king.  They  had  come  to 
London  suddenly  most  of  those  kings,  or 
their  fathers  before  them,  or  forefathers; 
some  had  come  away  from  their  kingdoms 
by  night,  in  a  light  sleigh,  flogging  the  horses, 
or  had  galloped  clear  with  morning  over  the 
border,  some  had  trudged  roads  for  days 
from  their  capital  in  disguise,  yet  many  had 
had  time  just  as  they  left  to  snatch  up  some 
small  thing  without  price  in  markets,  for  the 
sake  of  old  times  as  they  said,  but  quite  as 
much,  I  thought,  with  an  eye  to  the  future. 
And  there  these  treasures  glittered  on  that 

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long  table  in  the  banqueting-hall  of  the  base- 
ment of  that  strange  club.  Merely  to  see 
them  was  much,  but  to  hear  their  story  that 
their  owners  told  was  to  go  back  in  fancy 
to  epic  times  on  the  romantic  border  of  fable 
and  fact,  where  the  heroes  of  history  fought 
with  the  gods  of  myth.  The  famous  silver 
horses  of  Gilgianza  were  there  climbing 
their  sheer  mountain,  which  they  did  by 
miraculous  means  before  the  time  of  the 
Goths.  It  was  not  a  large  piece  of  silver 
but  its  workmanship  outrivalled  the  skill  of 
the  bees. 

A  yellow  Emperor  had  brought  out  of  the 
East  a  piece  of  that  incomparable  porce- 
lain that  had  made  his  dynasty  famous 
though  all  their  deeds  are  forgotten,  it  had 
the  exact  shade  of  the  right  purple. 

And  there  was  a  little  golden  statuette  of 
a  dragon  stealing  a  diamond  from  a  lady, 
the  dragon  had  the  diamond  in  his  claws, 
large  and  of  the  first  water.  There  had 
been  a  kingdom  whose  whole  constitution 
and  history  were  founded  on  the  legend, 
from  which  alone  its  kings  had  claimed  their 
right  to  the  sceptre,  that  a  dragon  stole  a 
diamond  from  a  lady.  When  its  last  king 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

left  that  country,  because  his  favourite  gen- 
eral used  a  peculiar  formation  under  the  fire 
of  artillery,  he  brought  with  him  the  little 
ancient  image  that  no  longer  proved  him  a 
king  outside  that  singular  club. 

There  was  the  pair  of  amethyst  cups  of 
the  turbaned  King  of  Foo,  the  one  that  he 
drank  from  himself,  and  the  one  that  he 
gave  to  his  enemies,  eye  could  not  tell  which 
was  which. 

All  these  things  the  ex-King  of  Eritivaria 
showed  me,  telling  me  a  marvellous  tale  of 
each;  of  his  own  he  had  brought  nothing, 
except  the  mascot  that  used  once  to  sit  on 
the  top  of  the  water  tube  of  his  favourite 
motor. 

I  have  not  outlined  a  tenth  of  the  splen- 
dour of  that  table,  I  had  meant  to  come 
again  and  examine  each  piece  of  plate  and 
make  notes  of  its  history;  had  I  known  that 
this  was  the  last  time  I  should  wish  to  enter 
that  club  I  should  have  looked  at  its  treas- 
ures more  attentively,  but  now  as  the  wine 
went  round  and  the  exiles  began  to  talk  I 
took  my  eyes  from  the  table  and  listened  td 
strange  tales  of  their  former  state. 

He  that  has  seen  better  times  has  usually 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

a  poor  tale  to  tell,  some  mean  and  trivial 
thing  has  been  his  undoing,  but  they  that 
dined  in  that  basement  had  mostly  fallen 
like  oaks  on  nights  of  abnormal  tempest,  had 
fallen  mightily  and  shaken  a  nation.  Those 
who  had  not  been  kings  themselves,  but 
claimed  through  an  exiled  ancestor,  had 
stories  to  tell  of  even  grander  disaster,  his- 
tory seeming  to  have  mellowed  their  dy- 
nasty's fate  as  moss  grows  over  an  oak  a 
great  while  fallen.  There  were  no  jealous- 
ies there  as  so  often  there  are  among  kings, 
rivalry  must  have  ceased  with  the  loss  of 
their  navies  and  armies,  and  they  showed 
no  bitterness  against  those  that  had  turned 
them  out,  one  speaking  of  the  error  of  his 
Prime  Minister  by  which  he  had  lost  his 
throne  as  "poor  old  Friedrich's  Heaven-sent 
gift  of  tactlessness." 

They  gossipped  pleasantly  of  many  things, 
the  tittle-tattle  we  all  had  to  know  when  we 
were  learning  history,  and  many  a  wonder- 
ful story  I  might  have  heard,  many  a  side- 
light on  mysterious  wars  had  I  not  made  use 
of  one  unfortunate  word.  That  word  was 
"upstairs." 

The  ex-King  of  Eritivaria  having  pointed 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

out  to  me  those  unparalleled  heirlooms  to 
which  I  have  alluded,  and  many  more 
besides,  hospitably  asked  me  if  there  was 
anything  else  that  I  would  care  to  see,  he 
meant  the  pieces  of  plate  that  they  had  in 
the  cupboards,  the  curiously  graven  swords 
of  other  princes,  historic  jewels,  legendary 
seals,  but  I  who  had  had  a  glimpse  of  their 
marvellous  staircase,  whose  balustrade  I 
believed  to  be  solid  gold  and  wondering  why 
in  such  a  stately  house  they  chose  to  dine  in 
the  basement,  mentioned  the  word  "up- 
stairs." A  profound  hush  came  down  on 
the  whole  assembly,  the  hush  that  might 
greet  levity  in  a  cathedral. 

" Upstairs!"  he  gasped.  "We  cannot  go 
upstairs." 

I  perceived  that  what  I  had  said  was  an 
ill-chosen  thing.  I  tried  to  excuse  myself 
but  knew  not  how. 

"Of  course,"  I  muttered,  "members  may 
not  take  guests  upstairs." 

"Members!"  he  said  to  me.  "We  are 
not  the  members!" 

There  was  such  reproof  in  his  voice  that 
I  said  no  more,  I  looked  at  him  question- 
ingly,  perhaps  my  lips  moved,  I  may  have 

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The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

said  "What  are  you?"  A  great  surprise 
had  come  on  me  at  their  attitude. 

"We  are  the  waiters,"  he  said. 

That  I  could  not  have  known,  here  at 
least  was  honest  ignorance  that  I  had  no 
need  to  be  ashamed  of,  the  very  opulence  of 
their  table  denied  it. 

"Then  who  are  the  members?"  I  asked. 

Such  a  hush  fell  at  that  question,  such  a 
hush  of  genuine  awe,  that  all  of  a  sudden  a 
wild  thought  entered  my  head,  a  thought 
strange  and  fantastic  and  terrible.  I 
gripped  my  host  by  the  wrist  and  hushed 
my  voice. 

"Are  they  too  exiles?"  I  asked. 

Twice  as  he  looked  in  my  face  he  gravely 
nodded  his  head. 

I  left  that  club  very  swiftly  indeed,  never 
to  see  it  again,  scarcely  pausing  to  say  fare- 
well to  those  menial  kings,  and  as  I  left  the 
door  a  great  window  opened  far  up  at  the 
top  of  the  house  and  a  flash  of  lightning 
streamed  from  it  and  killed  a  dog. 


199 


The  Three 

Infernal  Jokes 


his  is  the  story  that  the  des- 
olate man  told  to  me  on  the 
lonely  Highland  road  one  au- 
tumn evening  with  winter 
coming  on  and  the  stags  roar- 
ing. 

The  saddening  twilight,  the  mountain 
already  black,  the  dreadful  melancholy  of 
the  stags'  voices,  his  friendless  mournful 
face,  all  seemed  to  be  of  some  most  sorrow- 
ful play  staged  in  that  valley  by  an  outcast 
god,  a  lonely  play  of  which  the  hills  were 
part  and  he  the  only  actor. 

For  long  we  watched  each  other  drawing 
out  of  the  solitudes  of  those  forsaken  spaces. 
Then  when  we  met  he  spoke. 

"  I  will  tell  you  a  thing  that  will  make  you 
die  of  laughter.  I  will  keep  it  to  myself  no 


200 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

longer.  But  first  I  must  tell  you  how  I 
came  by  it. " 

I  do  not  give  the  story  in  his  words  with 
all  his  woeful  interjections  and  the  misery  of 
his  frantic  self-reproaches  for  I  would  not 
convey  unnecessarily  to  my  readers  that 
atmosphere  of  sadness  that  was  about  all  he 
said  and  that  seemed  to  go  with  him  where- 
ever  he  moved. 

It  seems  that  he  had  been  a  member  of  a 
club,  a  West-end  club  he  called  it,  a  respect- 
able but  quite  inferior  affair,  probably  in  the 
City:  agents  belonged  to  it,  fire  insurance 
mostly,  but  life  insurance  and  motor-agents 
too,  it  was  in  fact  a  touts'  club. 

It  seems  that  a  few  of  them  one  evening, 
forgetting  for  a  moment  their  encyclopedias 
and  non-stop  tyres,  were  talking  loudly  over 
a  card-table  when  the  game  had  ended  about 
their  personal  virtues,  and  a  very  little  man 
with  waxed  moustaches  who  disliked  the 
taste  of  wine  was  boasting  heartily  of  his 
temperance.  It  was  then  that  he  who  told 
this  mournful  story,  drawn  on  by  the  boasts 
of  others,  leaned  forward  a  little  over  the 
green  baize  into  the  light  of  the  two  gutter- 
ing candles  wd  revealed,  no  doubt  a  little 
201 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

shyly,  his  own  extraordinary  virtue.  One 
woman  was  to  him  as  ugly  as  another. 

And  the  silenced  boasters  rose  and  went 
home  to  bed  leaving  him  all  alone,  as  he 
supposed,  with  his  unequalled  virtue.  And 
yet  he  was  not  alone,  for  when  the  rest  had 
gone  there  arose  a  member  out  of  a  deep 
arm-chair  at  the  dark  end  of  the  room  and 
walked  across  to  him,  a  man  whose  occupa- 
tion he  did  not  know  and  only  now  suspects. 

"You  have,"  said  the  stranger,  "a  sur- 
passing virtue." 

"I  have  no  possible  use  for  it,"  my  poor 
friend  replied. 

"Then  doubtless  you  would  sell  it  cheap," 
said  the  stranger. 

Something  in  the  man's  manner  or  appear- 
ance made  the  desolate  teller  of  this  mourn- 
ful tale  feel  his  own  inferiority,  which  prob- 
ably made  him  feel  acutely  shy,  so  that  his 
mind  abased  itself  as  an  Oriental  does  his 
body  in  the  presence  of  a  superior,  or  per- 
haps he  was  sleepy,  or  merely  a  little  drunk. 
Whatever  it  was  he  only  mumbled,  "  O 
yes,"  instead  of  contradicting  so  mad  a 
remark.  And  the  stranger  led  the  way  to 
the  room  where  the  telephone  was, 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

"I  think  you  will  find  my  firm  will  give 
a  good  price  for  it,"  he  said:  and  without 
more  ado  he  began  with  a  pair  of  pincers  to 
cut  the  wire  of  the  telephone  and  the  re- 
ceiver. The  old  waiter  who  looked  after 
the  club  they  had  left  shuffling  round  the 
other  room  putting  things  away  for  the 
night. 

"Whatever  are  you  doing  of?"  said  my 
friend. 

"This  way,"  said  the  stranger.  Along 
a  passage  they  went  and  away  to  the  back 
of  the  club  and  there  the  stranger  leaned  out 
of  a  window  and  fastened  the  severed  wires 
to  the  lightning  conductor.  My  friend  has 
no  doubt  of  that,  a  broad  ribbon  of  copper, 
half  an  inch  wide,  perhaps  wider,  running 
down  from  the  roof  to  the  earth. 

"Hell,"  said  the  stranger  with  his  mouth 
to  the  telephone;  then  silence  for  a  while 
with  his  ear  to  the  receiver,  leaning  out  of 
the  window.  And  then  my  friend  heard 
his  poor  virtue  being  several  times  repeated, 
and  then  words  like  Yes  and  No. 

"They  offer  you  three  jokes,"  said  the 
stranger,  "which  shall  make  all  who  hear 
them  simply  die  of  laughter." 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

I  think  my  friend  was  reluctant  then  to 
have  anything  more  to  do  with  it,  he  wanted 
to  go  home;  he  said  he  didn't  want  jokes. 

"They  think  very  highly  of  your  virtue," 
said  the  stranger.  And  at  that,  odd  as  it 
seems,  my  friend  wavered,  for  logically  if 
they  thought  highly  of  the  goods  they  should 
have  paid  a  higher  price. 

"0  aU  right,"  he  said. 

The  extraordinary  document  that  the 
agent  drew  from  his  pocket  ran  something 
like  this: 

"I in  consideration  of  three 

new  jokes  received  from  Mr.  Montagu- 
Montague,  hereinafter  to  be  called  the  agent, 
and  warranted  to  be  as  by  him  stated  and 
described,  do  assign  to  him,  yield,  abrogate 
and  give  up  all  recognitions,  emoluments, 
perquisites  or  rewards  due  to  me  Here  or 
Elsewhere  on  account  of  the  following  virtue, 

to  wit  and  that  is  to  say that  all 

women  are  to  me  equally  ugly."  The  last 
eight  words  being  filled  in  in  ink  by  Mr. 
Montagu-Montague. 

My  poor  friend  duly  signed  it.  "These 
are  the  jokes,"  said  the  agent.  They  were 
boldly  written  on  three  slips  of  paper. 

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The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

"They  don't  seem  very  funny,"  said  the 
other  when  he  had  read  them.  "You  are 
immune,"  said  Mr.  Montagu-Montague, 
"but  anyone  else  who  hears  them  will  simply 
die  of  laughter:  that  we  guarantee." 

An  American  firm  had  bought  at  the  price 
of  waste  paper  a  hundred  thousand  copies 
of  The  Dictionary  of  Electricity  written 
when  electricity  was  new,  —  and  it  had 
turned  out  that  even  at  the  time  its  author 
had  not  rightly  grasped  his  subject,  —  the 
firm  had  paid  £10,000  to  a  respectable 
English  paper  (no  other  in  fact  than  the 
Briton)  for  the  use  of  its  name,  and  to  obtain 
orders  for  The  Briton  Dictionary  of  Electric- 
ity was  the  occupation  of  my  unfortunate 
friend.  He  seems  to  have  had  a  way  with 
him.  Apparently  he  knew  by  a  glance  at 
a  man,  or  a  look  round  at  his  garden,  whether 
to  recommend  the  book  as  "an  absolutely 
up-to-date  achievement,  the  finest  thing  of 
its  kind  in  the  world  of  modern  science"  or 
as  "at  once  quaint  and  imperfect,  a  thing 
to  buy  and  to  keep  as  a  tribute  to  those  dear 
old  times  that  are  gone."  So  he  went  on 
with  this  quaint  though  usual  business, 
putting  aside  the  memory  of  that  night  as 

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The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

an  occasion  on  which  he  had  "somewhat 
exceeded"  as  they  say  in  circles  where  a 
spade  is  called  neither  a  spade  nor  an  agri- 
cultural implement  but  is  never  mentioned 
at  all,  being  altogether  too  vulgar. 

And  then  one  night  he  put  on  his  suit  of 
dress  clothes  and  found  the  three  jokes  in 
the  pocket.  That  was  perhaps  a  shock. 
He  seems  to  have  thought  it  over  carefully 
then,  and  the  end  of  it  was  he  gave  a  dinner 
at  the  club  to  twenty  of  the  members.  The 
dinner  would  do  no  harm  he  thought  - 
might  even  help  the  business,  and  if  the  joke 
came  off  he  would  be  a  witty  fellow,  and 
two  jokes  still  up  his  sleeve. 

Whom  he  invited  or  how  the  dinner  went 
I  do  not  know  for  he  began  to  speak  rapidly 
and  came  straight  to  the  point,  as  a  stick 
that  nears  a  cataract  suddenly  goes  faster 
and  faster.  The  dinner  was  duly  served, 
the  port  went  round,  the  twenty  men  were 
smoking,  two  waiters  loitered,  when  he  after 
carefully  reading  the  best  of  the  jokes  told 
it  down  the  table.  They  laughed.  One 
man  accidentally  inhaled  his  cigar  smoke 
and  spluttered,  the  two  waiters  overheard 
and  tittered  behind  their  hands,  one  man, 

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The  Last  Book  °f  Wonder 

a  bit  of  a  raconteur  himself,  quite  clearly 
wished  not  to  laugh,  but  his  veins  swelled 
dangerously  in  trying  to  keep  it  back,  and 
in  the  end  he  laughed  too.  The  joke  had 
succeeded;  my  friend  smiled  at  the  thought; 
he  wished  to  say  little  deprecating  things  to 
the  man  on  his  right;  but  the  laughter  did 
not  stop  and  the  waiters  would  not  be  silent. 
He  waited,  and  waited  wondering;  the 
laughter  went  roaring  on,  distinctly  louder 
now,  and  the  waiters  as  loud  as  any.  It 
had  gone  on  for  three  or  four  minutes  when 
this  frightful  thought  leaped  up  all  at  once 
in  his  mind:  it  was  forced  laughter!  How- 
ever could  anything  have  induced  him  to 
tell  so  foolish  a  joke?  He  saw  its  absurdity 
as  in  revelation;  and  the  more  he  thought 
of  it  as  these  people  laughed  at  him,  even 
the  waiters  too,  the  more  he  felt  that  he 
could  never  lift  up  his  head  with  his  brother 
touts  again.  And  still  the  laughter  went 
roaring  and  choking  on.  He  was  very 
angry.  There  was  not  much  use  in  having 
a  friend,  he  thought,  if  one  silly  joke  could 
not  be  overlooked;  he  had  fed  them  too. 
And  then  he  felt  that  he  had  no  friends  at 
all,  and  his  anger  faded  away,  and  a  great 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

unhappiness  came  down  on  him,  and  he  got 
quietly  up  and  slunk  from  the  room  and 
slipped  away  from  the  club.  Poor  man,  he 
scarcely  had  the  heart  next  morning  even  to 
glance  at  the  papers,  but  you  did  not  need 
to  glance  at  them,  big  type  was  bandied 
about  that  day  as  though  it  were  common 
type,  the  words  of  the  headlines  stared  at 
you;  and  the  headlines  said:  —  Twenty- 
Two  Dead  Men  at  a  Club. 

Yes,  he  saw  it  then:  the  laughter  had  not 
stopped,  some  had  probably  burst  blood 
vessels,  some  must  have  choked,  some  suc- 
cumbed to  nausea,  heart-failure  must  have 
mercifully  taken  some,  and  they  were  his 
friends  after  all,  and  none  had  escaped,  not 
even  the  waiters.  It  was  that  infernal  joke. 

He  thought  out  swiftly,  and  remembers 
clear  as  a  nightmare,  the  drive  to  Victoria 
Station,  the  boat-train  to  Dover  and  going 
disguised  to  the  boat:  and  on  the  boat  pleas- 
antly smiling,  almost  obsequious,  two  con- 
stables that  wished  to  speak  for  a  moment 
with  Mr.  Watkyn-Jones.  That  was  his 
name. 

In  a  third-class  carriage  with  handcuffs 
on  his  wrists,  with  forced  conversation  when 

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The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

any,  he  returned  between  his  captors  to 
Victoria  to  be  tried  for  murder  at  the  High 
Court  of  Bow. 

At  the  trial  he  was  defended  by  a  young 
barrister  of  considerable  ability  who  had 
gone  into  the  Cabinet  in  order  to  enhance 
his  forensic  reputation.  And  he  was  ably 
defended.  It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that 
the  speech  for  the  defence  showed  it  to  be 
usual,  even  natural  and  right,  to  give  a 
dinner  to  twenty  men  and  to  slip  away  with- 
out ever  saying  a  word,  leaving  all,  with 
the  waiters,  dead.  That  was  the  impression 
left  in  the  minds  of  the  jury.  And  Mr. 
Watkyn-Jones  felt  himself  practically  free, 
with  all  the  advantages  of  his  awful  experi- 
ence, and  his  two  jokes  intact.  But  law- 
yers are  still  experimenting  with  the  new 
act  which  allows  a  prisoner  to  give  evidence. 
They  do  not  like  to  make  no  use  of  it  for 
fear  they  may  be  thought  not  to  know  of  the 
act,  and  a  lawyer  who  is  not  in  touch  with 
the  very  latest  laws  is  soon  regarded  as  not 
being  up  to  date  and  he  may  drop  as  much 
as  £50,000  a  year  in  fees.  And  therefore 
though  it  always  hangs  their  clients  they 
hardly  like  to  neglect  it. 

209 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

Mr.  Watkyn-Jones  was  put  in  the  witness 
box.  There  he  told  the  simple  truth,  and 
a  very  poor  affair  it  seemed  after  the  im- 
passioned and  beautiful  things  that  were 
uttered  by  the  counsel  for  the  defence. 
Men  and  women  had  wept  when  they  heard 
that.  They  did  not  weep  when  they  heard 
Watkyn-Jones.  Some  tittered.  It  no 
longer  seemed  a  right  and  natural  thing  to 
leave  one's  guests  all  dead  and  to  fly  the 
country.  Where  was  Justice,  they  asked, 
if*  anyone  could  do  that?  And  when  his 
story  was  told  the  judge  rather  happily 
asked  if  he  could  make  him  die  of  laughter 
too.  And  what  was  the  j  oke?  For  in  so  grave 
a  place  as  a  Court  of  Justice  no  fatal  effects 
need  be  feared.  And  hesitatingly  the  pris- 
oner pulled  from  his  pocket  the  three  slips 
of  paper:  and  perceived  for  the  first  time 
that  the  one  on  which  the  first  and  best  joke 
had  been  written  had  become  quite  blank. 
Yet  he  could  remember  it,  and  only  too 
clearly.  And  he  told  it  from  memory  to  the 
Court. 

"An  Irishman  once  on  being  asked  by  his 
master  to  buy  a  morning  paper  said  in  his 
usual  witty  way,  'Arrah  and  begorrah  and 
210 


The  Last  Book  of  Wondet 

I  will  be  after  wishing  you  the  top  of  the 
morning. ' ' 

No  joke  sounds  quite  so  good  the  second 
time  it  is  told,  it  seems  to  lose  something 
of  its  essence,  but  Watkyn-Jones  was  not 
prepared  for  the  awful  stillness  with  which 
this  one  was  received;  nobody  smiled;  and  it 
had  killed  twenty-two  men.  The  joke  was 
bad,  devilish  bad;  counsel  for  the  defence 
was  frowning,  and  an  usher  was  looking  in  a 
little  bag  for  something  the  judge  wanted. 
And  at  this  moment,  as  though  from  far 
away,  without  his  wishing  it,  there  entered 
the  prisoner's  head,  and  shone  there  and 
would  not  go,  this  old  bad  proverb:  "As 
well  be  hung  for  a  sheep  as  for  a  lamb." 
The  jury  seemed  to  be  just  about  to  retire. 
"I  have  another  joke,"  said  Watkyn- 
Jones,  and  then  and  there  he  read  from  the 
second  slip  of  paper.  He  watched  the  paper 
curiously  to  see  if  it  would  go  blank,  occupy- 
ing his  mind  with  so  slight  a  thing  as  men  in 
dire  distress  very  often  do,  and  the  words 
were  almost  immediately  expunged,  swept 
swiftly  as  if  by  a  hand,  and  he  saw  the  paper 
before  him  as  blank  as  the  first.  And  they 
were  laughing  this  time,  judge,  jury,  counsel 

211 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

for  the  prosecution,  audience  and  all,  and 
the  grim  men  that  watched  him  upon 
either  side.  There  was  no  mistake  about 
this  joke. 

He  did  not  stay  to  see  the  end,  and 
walked  out  with  his  eyes  fixed  on  the  ground, 
unable  to  bear  a  glance  to  the  right  or  left. 
And  since  then  he  has  wandered,  avoiding 
ports  and  roaming  lonely  places.  Two 
years  have  known  him  on  the  Highland 
roads,  often  hungry,  always  friendless,  al- 
ways changing  his  district,  wandering  lonely 
on  with  his  deadly  joke. 

Sometimes  for  a  moment  he  will  enter 
inns,  driven  by  cold  and  hunger,  and  hear 
men  in  the  evening  telling  jokes  and  even 
challenging  him;  but  he  sits  desolate  and 
silent,  lest  his  only  weapon  should  escape 
from  him  and  his  last  joke  spread  mourning 
in  a  hundred  cots.  His  beard  has  grown 
and  turned  grey  and  is  mixed  with  moss  and 
weeds,  so  that  no  one,  I  think,  not  even  the 
police,  would  recognise  him  now  for  that 
dapper  tout  that  sold  The  Briton  Dictionary 
of  Electricity  in  such  a  different  land. 

He  paused,  his  story  told,  and  then  his 
lip  quivered  as  though  he  would  say  more, 

212 


The  Last  Book  of  Wonder 

and  I  believe  he  intended  then  and  there  to 
yield  up  his  deadly  joke  on  that  Highland 
road  and  to  go  forth  then  with  his  three 
blank  slips  of  paper,  perhaps  to  a  felon's 
cell,  with  one  more  murder  added  to  his 
crimes,  but  harmless  at  last  to  man.  I 
therefore  hurried  on,  and  only  heard  him 
mumbling  sadly  behind  me,  standing  bowed 
and  broken,  all  alone  in  the  twilight,  perhaps 
telling  over  and  over  even  then  the  last 
infernal  joke. 

THE  END 


213 


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